13-Jun-2019: Golden cat spotted in new colours

Golden is no longer the only colour the elusive Asiatic golden cat can be associated with. Its coat comes in five other shades in Arunachal Pradesh. The Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) is listed as near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species. It is found across eastern Nepal through north-eastern India to Indonesia.

Bhutan and China were known to have two morphs of the golden cat — one the colour of cinnamon and the other with markings similar to the ocelot, a small wild cat found in the Americas.

Indian scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), an international conservation charity, and University College London (UCL) have discovered six colour morphs of the golden cat in Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh. The findings have contributed to an evolutionary puzzle because no other place on earth has so many colours of wild cats of the same species.

The Idu Mishmi tribe were aware of the different shades of the golden cat. The community believes that the cat, particularly its melanistic (dark pigmentation as opposed to albinism) morph, possesses great powers and thus observe a strict taboo on hunting the cat.

Within the six colour morphs recorded, an entirely new colour morph was also found in one of the community-owned forests. The “tightly-rosetted” morph named after the leopard-like rosettes on the coat, now sits alongside cinnamon, melanistic, gray, golden, and ocelot types.

Camouflage benefits: ZSL scientists believe that the wide variation displayed in the cat’s coats provides them with several ecological benefits such as occupying different habitats at different elevations — from wet tropical lowland forests to alpine scrubs — and providing camouflage while preying on pheasants and rabbits.

Colour morphs are thought to arise from random genetic mutations and take hold in the population through natural selection. In this region, scientists suspect that the phenomenon is driven by competition with other big cats such as tigers and clouded leopards. Being melanistic in the misty mountains during nocturnal hunts, for example, may mean they are better concealed from their prey; making them more efficient predators.