Hose's Palm Civet - Distribution and Habitat

Distribution and Habitat

Hose's civet has only been recorded from a few localities in Sarawak and Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, and in Brunei; it has not been recorded from Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo).

There have been very few field sightings of the species, and these have been mainly from lower montane forest and mature mixed dipterocarp forest.

A few recent sightings exist, including a capture in Brunei (which was subsequently released) and a photo taken by a camera trap in lowland forest of Kinabalu National Park in Sabah. Another camera trap picture taken in Kalimantan may represent this species, but has been the subject of controversy.

The highest encounter rate of the species so far has been in the Sela’an-Linau Forest Management Unit (FMU), a logging concession in the Upper Baram, Sarawak, where fourteen images of the Hose's civet were obtained between 2004 and 2005 from four different sites in the concession. The previous largest series of encounters from one locality consisted of four specimens collected between 1945 and 1949 by Tom Harrisson in the nearby Kelabit Highlands, suggesting that this part of Sarawak may be the prime habitat of the species.

The few records of Hose’s civet from across its range have been mainly from montane forest sites, giving rise to the assumption that it is a montane species. However, it has been reported from an altitude of only 450m in Brunei and 600 metres (2,000 ft) in Batu Song, Sarawak; an individual was camera trapped in the lowland forest of Mount Kinabalu National Park, Sabah, also at an altitude of only 600 metres (2,000 ft), and one of the 14 images from the Sela’an-Linau FMU was from an altitude of 730 metres (2,400 ft).

It may be that the preferred habitat of Hose's civet is highly humid, mossy forests, near mossy boulders and streams.