Taxonomy
The Asian golden cat bears a great resemblance to the African golden cat, but it is unlikely that they are closely related because the forests of Africa and Asia have not been connected in over 20 million years. Their similarity is more an example of convergent evolution.
The Asian golden cat is similar to the bay cat of Borneo in both appearance and behavior. Genetic studies revealed that the two species are very closely related. The Asian golden cat is found in Sumatra and Malaysia, which only separated from Borneo about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. These observations led to the assumption that the Borneo bay cat is an insular subspecies of the Asian golden cat.
Genetic analysis has shown that the Asian golden cat, along with the bay cat and the marbled cat, diverged from the other felids about 9.4 million years ago, and that the Asian golden cat and bay cat differed as long as four million years ago, suggesting that the bay cat was a different species long before the isolation of Borneo. Because of the evident close relationship with the marbled cat, it has recently been suggested that all three species should be grouped in the genus Pardofelis.
Read more about this topic: Asian Golden Cat