{"id":254153,"date":"2026-01-20T11:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T11:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/254153\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T11:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T11:14:12","slug":"trail-cameras-capture-rare-flat-headed-cat-in-thai-forest-it-hasnt-been-seen-there-for-almost-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/254153\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail cameras capture rare\u00a0flat-headed cat in Thai forest. It hasn’t been seen there for almost 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the smallest cat in South-east Asia, and one of the smallest in the world, so perhaps it\u2019s not surprising that the flat-headed cat can be elusive, though in reality this has more to do with the environment it prefers.<\/p>\n

Named for its curiously flattened skull, this is a wild cat of wetlands and swamp forests with a global population, according to the wildlife conservation experts at the IUCN, of just 2,500 adult individuals.<\/p>\n

But thanks to a camera-trapping project in the very southern tip of Thailand, scientists from Panthera<\/a>, the global conservation group, have discovered a population in Princess Sirindhorn Sanctuary \u2013\u00a0the first observations of the species there in 30 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thirteen detections were made in 2024 and 16 last year, and these included one female with her cub.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this stage, we cannot estimate the population size because the methods used so far do not allow for individual identification or abundance estimation,\u201d says Rattapan Pattanarangsan, Panthera’s conservation program manager for Thailand.<\/p>\n

Camera trap footage shows a flat-headed\u00a0cat wandering through the Princess Sirindhorn Sanctuary in Thailand. Credit: Panthera<\/p>\n

There are two problems with gathering more information about how flat-headed cats are faring in the sanctuary \u2013\u00a0the first is the nature of the swamp forest terrain, with its complex mosaic habitat of open water and patches of land where rangers can move only 1-2km a day.<\/p>\n

The second is the nature of the beasts themselves. \u201cIndividual flat-headed cats cannot be identified by coat patterns, which prevents us from using photographic capture-recapture methods,\u201d Rattapan adds.<\/p>\n

The footage of the flat-headed cats mark the first observations of the species there in the Princess Sirindhorn Sanctuary for 30 years. Credit: Panthera<\/p>\n

The flat-headed cat is a little studied feline weighing, on average, just 1.5kg, which is less than half your standard house cat in the UK. <\/p>\n

One thing that excites the Panthera team in Thailand is that this newly-discovered population appears to be more concentrated than other ones in Malaysia and Indonesia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe higher concentration makes this site more suitable for intensive research,\u201d says Rattapan, \u201cand this area therefore offers strong potential for future ecological and behavioural studies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flat-headed\u00a0cats weigh on average 1.5kg. Credit: Panthera<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0Prionailurus\u00a0genus and therefore closely related to fishing cats<\/a> and leopard cats, flat-headed cats are believed to subsist mainly on fish, though there has been no systematic study of their diet. They appear to be largely solitary, like most other small cats<\/a>, with females rearing cubs with no male involvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They have a very restricted distribution and are only found on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, as well as the Malaysian peninsula (which includes the very southern point of Thailand).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Flat-headedThe flat-headed cat is one of the world’s rarest and least-understood wild cats. Credit: Panthera<\/p>\n

Top image: Flat-headed cat. Panthera<\/p>\n

More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the smallest cat in South-east Asia, and one of the smallest in the world, so perhaps it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-254153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}