Distribution and Habitat
Clouded leopards are native to Indochina, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. They are regionally extinct in Taiwan, and occur marginally in mixed-evergreen forests of the northeastern and southeastern parts of Bangladesh. In the Himalayan foothills of eastern India they have been recorded up to an altitude of 1,450 m (4,760 ft). They have been reported from relatively open, dry tropical forest in Myanmar and Thailand. They prefer open- or closed-forest habitats to other habitat types.
In Assam, they have been observed in forests but have not been recorded in protected areas. They occur in northern West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.
Clouded leopards were believed to be extinct in Nepal, the last published record being from 1863. But in 1987–1988 four individuals were found in the country. These findings extended their known range westward suggesting that they are able to survive and breed in degraded woodlands and scrub previously supporting moist subtropical semi-deciduous forest.
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