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Rusty-spotted Cat Photographed in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary for the First Time

Rusty-spotted cat resting among roots and fallen leaves
Conservation · Population & status

A 2026 field note reports the first photographic confirmation of a rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary in Odisha, India. The record came from a camera-trap survey originally designed to monitor large carnivores and their prey.

Researchers deployed 73 camera traps from April to May 2025, accumulating 2,206 camera-trap days. A single rusty-spotted cat was photographed at 01:40 on 18 May beside a forest road near a seasonal stream, at an elevation of 215 m. The nearest village boundary was about 3.2 km from the site.

Rusty-spotted cat photographed on a forest road in Kuldiha
Camera-trap photograph from Kuldiha, 18 May 2025 at 01:40. © Wildlife Institute of India and Odisha Forest Department. Image 1 from Singh et al. (2026), CC BY 4.0. Cropped.

The same camera station also recorded jungle cat, small Indian civet, Indian grey mongoose and a feral dog. The surrounding vegetation was dominated by sal forest with dense ground cover.

Map of Kuldiha with the camera-trap station marked
Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary with the camera-trap location marked in red. Figure 1 from Singh et al. (2026), CC BY 4.0.

An earlier camera survey had missed the species

A previous survey in Kuldiha, conducted from January to August 2013, did not detect the species despite 916 camera-trap days across 65 locations. The authors call for surveys specifically targeting rusty-spotted cats to assess their population status and ecological requirements.

Sources and image credit

  1. Singh, T., Rathore, H. S., Abhin, N., Muduli, S., Deshpande, Y., Sarkar, V., Chand, D. S., Gowda, S., Gogineni, P. C., Nair, M. V., Pandav, B., & Mondol, S. (2026). First photographic record of the Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 18(2), 28441–28443. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.10209.18.2.28441-28443

Image: David V. Raju / Wikimedia Commons — wild rusty-spotted cat photographed in India on 23 December 2015; representative species image, not the individual recorded in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary; cropped to 16:9 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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