In July, naturalist Soumyadip Santra was on a trip to the Indian Sundarbans, part of the world’s largest mangrove forest, when he witnessed an unusual scene: a fishing cat jumped on an adult monitor lizard and dragged it away toward some bushes. Santra’s photographs of the fishing cat in action captured a rare bit of natural history, reports contributor Nabarun Guha for Mongabay India.
Fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus) are medium-sized wildcats found in the wetlands of South and Southeast Asia. Listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, they’re known to live mainly on a diet of fish, small birds, insects and reptiles.
Fishing cat expert Tiasa Adhya said Santra’s photograph may be the first documentation of the cat catching a monitor lizard (Varanus spp.), a large-sized prey.
“This is a great find,” Adhya said. “The fishing cat is known to be a top predator in wetland ecosystems. This emphasizes that the monitor lizard, a powerful reptile with a strong tail and nearly the same size as a fishing cat, is among its prey.”
Adhya likened the interaction to jaguars (Panthera onca) hunting caimans in the Pentanal wetlands of South America. “Jaguars have a tendency to catch aquatic prey including caiman,” Adhya said. “So, a fishing cat killing an adult monitor lizard is a similar natural history moment.”
A fishing cat photographed feeding on a monitor lizard near Pirkhali, a part of Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary, in the Indian Sundarbans. Image courtesy of Soumyadip Santra.
Another ecologist who has studied fishing cats, Samrat Chakraborty, agreed that Santra’s photograph is “a very uncommon incident.”
“I have studied multiple papers on fishing cats and their diet but monitor lizards never featured on their menu,” he said. “In fact, in a 1988 paper, there is mention of fishing cats scavenging on carcass of a cow in Rajasthan. But I have never found any mention of monitor lizards.”
Chakraborty added that fishing cats face competition for fish from animals like otters, which may have led this individual to opportunistically hunt the monitor lizard instead. “The terrain of [the Sundarbans] is muddy and it is not easy to drag a prey quickly there. An adult monitor lizard is a powerful reptile and the fact that the fishing cat defeated it in this carnal battle showed how good hunters, cats can be,” he said.
Wildlife photographer Sudipta Chakraborty, who also photographed the same interaction as Santra that day in July, agreed that the fishing cat may have targeted the monitor lizard after days of failing to catch other prey. “So, being hungry it took a chance with the monitor lizard. This is not going to happen regularly,” he said.
Read the full story by Nabarun Guha here.
Banner image: A fishing cat photographed feeding on a monitor lizard near Pirkhali, a part of Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary, in the Indian Sundarbans. Image courtesy of Soumyadip Santra.
