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The Masked Palm Civet or Himalayan Palm Civet (Paguma larvata) is a species of civet
Civet

The family Viverridae is made up of 35 species, including all of the genet , the Binturong, most of the civets, and the four linsangs.Viverrids are native to most of the Old World tropics, nearly all of Africa , Madagascar, and the Iberian Peninsula....
 spread across South Asia
South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east....
 and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
, which in recent times was considered to be a likely vector of SARS
SARs

SARs may refer to:*Special Administrative Regions*Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome *South African Revenue Service ...
.

ppearance the Masked Palm Civet resembles other civets. Its fur is orange-brown to gray, and has no spots or stripes, unlike most other related species. Only the feet are darker, often black.






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Encyclopedia


The Masked Palm Civet or Himalayan Palm Civet (Paguma larvata) is a species of civet
Civet

The family Viverridae is made up of 35 species, including all of the genet , the Binturong, most of the civets, and the four linsangs.Viverrids are native to most of the Old World tropics, nearly all of Africa , Madagascar, and the Iberian Peninsula....
 spread across South Asia
South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east....
 and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
, which in recent times was considered to be a likely vector of SARS
SARs

SARs may refer to:*Special Administrative Regions*Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome *South African Revenue Service ...
.

Characteristics

In appearance the Masked Palm Civet resembles other civets. Its fur is orange-brown to gray, and has no spots or stripes, unlike most other related species. Only the feet are darker, often black. The face has a black and white variation: a white strip stretches from the forehead to the nose, surrounded by two black stripes, but the eyes are surrounded by white spots. The cheeks and the sides of the nose are black. The main body varies from 51 to 76 cm (20 to 28 in) in length, to which is added a tail of 51 to 63 cm (20 to 25 in). It was between 3.6 and 6 kg (8 and 13.2 lb).

Habitat and range

The Masked Palm Civet lives in forests, especially tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforest

Tropical rainforests are usually found around the equator. They are common in Asia, Australia, Africa, South America, Central America, Southern Mexico and on many of the Pacific Islands....
 and temperate deciduous forest
Temperate deciduous forest

The Temperate deciduous forest is a biome found in the eastern and western United States, Canada, central Mexico, southern South America, Europe, China, Japan, North Korea and parts of Russia....
. It ranges from Pakistan
Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
 to Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
 and China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
. It is also found on several islands, such as Borneo
Borneo

Borneo is the List of islands by area and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei....
, Sumatra
Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the list of islands by area in the world ....
, Taiwan
Taiwan

Taiwan is an island in East Asia. "Taiwan" is also commonly used to refer to the country governed by the Republic of China and to the ROC itself, which governs the island of Taiwan, Orchid Island and Green Island, Taiwan in the Pacific Ocean off the Taiwan coast, the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait, and Kinmen and the Matsu Islands...
, and the Andaman
Andaman

Andaman could mean:* Andaman Discoveries* Andaman Islands* Andaman Sea* The book The Andaman Islanders by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown....
 and Nicobar
Nicobar

Nicobar can refer to:* Nicobar Islands* Nicobar district* Nicobar Pigeon...
 chains. It is not native to Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
, but it was brought there at the beginning of the 20th century.

The principal danger for the Masked Palm Civet is continued habitat destruction
Habitat destruction

Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species originally present. In this process, plants and animals which previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity....
. However, because of its large range, it is not considered endangered
Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of an organism which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters....
.

Life

The Masked Palm Civet is a nocturnal
Nocturnal animal

As an animal behavior, nocturnality describes sleeping during the daytime and being active at night - the opposite of the diurnal animal human lifestyle, and that of those animals with which we are most familiar....
 solitary
Solitary

Solitary may refer to:* shortened form of solitary confinement in jail* Solitary , an episode of the TV series Lost* Solitary , a reality show made by FOX...
 predator, which stays principally in trees. During the day, it sleeps in the treetops. When alarmed, the animal sprays a secretion from its anal gland against the predator. The spray is similar in function to that of a skunk
Skunk

Skunks are mammals best known for their ability to excrete a strong, foul-smelling #Anal scent glands. General appearance ranges from species to species from black and white to brown or cream colored....
, and its conspicuousness serves to deter other predators.

The Masked Palm Civet is an omnivore
Omnivore

Omnivores are species that eating both plants and animals as their primary food source. They are opportunistic, general feeders not specifically adapted to eat and digest either meat or plant material exclusively....
, but the largest component of its diet is fruit. In addition it eats small vertebrates (such as squirrel
Squirrel

File:Eichh?rnchen D?sseldorf Hofgarten edit.jpgA squirrel is one of many small or medium-sized rodents in the family Sciuridae. In the English language-speaking world, squirrel commonly refers to members of this family's genus Sciurus and Tamiasciurus, which are tree squirrels with large bushy tails, indigenous to Asia, the America...
s and bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s) as well as insect
Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
s.

The female can bear young twice per year, in litters of one to four. The young grow to the size of an adult in about three months. Otherwise little detail is known about the reproductive cycle.

Connection with SARS

In parts of China the Masked Palm Civet is hunted for its meat and eaten. Through this, according to many virologists, the SARS coronavirus
SARS coronavirus

The SARS coronavirus, sometimes shortened to SARS-CoV, is the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome . On April 16 2003, following the outbreak of SARS in Asia and secondary cases elsewhere in the world, the World Health Organization issued a press release stating that the coronavirus identified by a number of laboratories...
 was first brought to humans. In May 2003 the virus was isolated in several Masked Palm Civets. There remains the possibility that the Masked Palm Civets were not the original carriers of the virus either, but received it from other, unknown animals. A paper by Daniel Janies, et al, in a February 2008 edition of the journal "Cladistics", posits that bats were the vector by which SARS entered the human population, not the civet.

Conservation

In Hong Kong
Hong Kong

Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located in Southern China in East Asia, bordering the province of Guangdong to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east, west and south....
, it is a protected species
List of protected species in Hong Kong

List of protected species in Hong Kong....
 under Wild Animals Protection Ordinance Cap 170..