A PRELIMINARY SURVEY ON THE STATUS OF BINTURONG (Arctitis binturong) IN TRISHNA WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, TRIPURA

摘要

Binturong (Arctitis binturong) is highly endangered and rarely encountered carnivore species belonging to the family Viverridae. Five species of viverrids are reported from Tripura (Menon 1975, Agarwal and Bhattacharjee 1977; Gupta 1999), namely, large civet (Viverra zibetha), small civet (Viverricula indica), palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), spotted linsang (Prionodon pardicolor), and binturong. Binturong is one of the biggest viverrids, and is exclusively distributed in the Indo-Chinese and Indo-Malayan sub-regions. It is also reported from the eastern Himalayas, Myanmar, Thailand, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and Palawan (Pocock, 1939). In India, it is reported from all seven northeastern states. It is common in the forests, both in the plains and hills throughout Arunachal Pradesh to Tripura (Choudhury, 1999). In Tripura, it is reported from some parts of West and South districts (Gupta 1999). Binturong forms a very distinct genus whose place in the natural system has not been satisfactorily decided. It was originally classed with racoons, and may be considered a sort of link between the plantigrade and digitigrade carnivores with some distant analogies to lemurs. Two subspecies, namely Arctitis binturong albifrons, and Arctitis binturong binturong, have been identified.