• Brown palm civet, an elusive nocturnal animal, was recently spotted.
• According to him, the brown palm civet is found in the hill ranges of south India and in North Kanara.
• Its general habits are similar to common civet cat.
• Endemic to rain forests of Western Ghats, its body length is between 48 cm and 59 cm, with a tail length between 40 cm and 53.5 cm. They weigh between 2.4 kg and 4 kg.
• Brown Palm Civet has been recorded only in evergreen forest and in degraded and anthropogenic habitats over former evergreen forest, such as coffee plantations; there are no records from deciduous forests.
• It inhabits large contiguous forests, high-altitude montane evergreen forest patches or sholas, and small forest fragments amid plantations of tea and coffee; its occurrence is higher in medium-sized forest fragments contiguous with coffee plantations than in forest fragments isolated by non-woody habitat
• Least Concern as per IUCN.

Source: The Hindu & IUCN Site