Distribution and Habitat
Asian golden cats live throughout Southeast Asia, ranging from Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, India and Bangladesh to Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Southern China to Malaysia and Sumatra. They prefer forest habitats interspersed with rocky areas, and are found in dry deciduous, subtropical evergreen and tropical rainforests. Sometimes, they are found in more open terrain such as the grasslands of Assam's Manas National Park. In altitude, they range from the lowlands to over 3,000 m (9,800 ft) in the Himalayas.
In Laos, they also occur in bamboo regrowth, scrub and degraded forest from the Mekong plains to at least 1,100 m (3,600 ft). Surveys in Sumatra and in the Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area in northern Laos indicated that they are more common than sympatric small cats, suggesting that they are more numerous than previously believed. Surveys in Thailand, northern Myanmar and India's western Arunachal Pradesh revealed fewer numbers.
In Bhutan's Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park, they were recorded by camera traps at an altitude of 3,738 m (12,264 ft). In Sikkim's Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve, they were photo-trapped at elevations up to 3,960 m (12,990 ft).
Since Hodgson’s description of 1831 of a male individual in Nepal under the binomial Felis moormensis, the country is believed to be the westernmost part of the felid's range. But no specimen has been recorded in the country, until in May 2009 a camera trap survey yielded the first photographic record of a melanistic Asian golden cat in Makalu Barun National Park at an altitude of 2,517 m (8,258 ft).
Three subspecies have been recognized:
- Pardofelis temminckii temminckii found in the Himalayas, Southeast Asian mainland and Sumatra
- Pardofelis temminckii dominicanorum found in southeast China
- Pardofelis temminckii tristis found in southwest China
These trinomials do not yet reflect the taxonomic re-classification accepted since 2006.
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