Prionailurus rubiginosus
The rusty-spotted cat is one of the cat family's smallest members. It is native to India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Since 2016, it has been listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List as the global population is affected by loss and destruction of its prime habitat, deciduous forests.

Davidvraju · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- rusty-spotted catPBDB
- Sits inside
- PrionailurusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Felidae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Felidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Mass
- 1.5 kgWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 11.7 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Prionailurus rubiginosus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
1 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Prionailurus rubiginosus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Prionailurus rubiginosus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
34 taxa- ? Cervulus muntijac1 site
- Antilope cervicapra1 site
- Axis axis1 site
- Bos1 site
- Boselaphus tragocamelus1 site
- Canis1 site
- Caprini1 site
- Cervus aristotelis1 site
- Cervus axis1 site
- Cervus unicolor1 site
- Crocuta crocuta1 site
- Cynocephalus sp.1 site
- Equus1 site
- Equus asinus1 site
- Felis1 site
- Felis chaus1 site
- Gazella benneti1 site
- Gazella gazella1 site
- Melursus1 site
- Muntiacus muntjak1 site
- Panthera tigris1 site
- Papio1 site
- Rhinoceros karnuliensis1 site
- Semnopithcus entellus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Prionailurus rubiginosus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Prionailurus rubiginosus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Davidvraju
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Prionailurus rubiginosus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPrionailurus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Geoffroy 1831)