Large Indian civet
| Large Indian civet | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Viverridae |
| Subfamily: | Viverrinae |
| Genus: | Viverra |
| Species: | V. zibetha |
| Binomial name | |
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Viverra zibetha Linnaeus, 1758 |
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| Large Indian civet range | |
The large Indian civet (Viverra zibetha) is a civet native to South and Southeast Asia. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The global population is considered decreasing mainly because of trapping-driven declines in heavily hunted and fragmented areas, notably in China, and the heavy trade as wild meat.
The large Indian civet is grey or tawny and has a black spinal stripe running from behind the shoulders to the root of the tail. The front of the muzzle has a whitish patch emphasized by blackish behind on each side. The chin and fore throat are blackish. The sides and lower surface of the neck are banded with black stripes and white spaces in between. The tail has a variable number of complete black and white rings. Its claws are retractable. The soles of the feet are hairy.
Its head-and-body length ranges from 50 to 95 cm (20 to 37 in) with a 38 to 59 cm (15 to 23 in) long tail. The hind foot measures 9 to 14.5 cm (3.5 to 5.7 in). Its weight ranges from 3.4 to 9.2 kg (7.5 to 20.3 lb).
The large Indian civet ranges from Nepal, northeast India, Bhutan, Bangladesh to Myanmar, Thailand, the Malay peninsula and Singapore to Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and China.
In Nepal, large Indian civet was recorded up to 2,250 m (7,380 ft) in the Himalayas, which constitutes the highest altitudinal record in this country.
Five subspecies are recognized:
Six subspecies have been proposed but a taxonomic revision is needed. The validity of the species Viverra tainguensis described in 1997 by Sokolov, Rozhnov and Pham Chong from Tây Nguyên in Gia Lai Province in Vietnam has been seriously questioned, and it is now generally considered a synonym of V. zibetha.
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