Thank you for pointing out. So what about this picture? Beijing Zoo used to keep three subspecies of Asiatic Golden Cat.
This is also tristis, and another photograph of an "ocelot" morph animal which I had never seen before
of the three subspecies, only the Tibetan displays this pattern. Even animals which are not true "ocelot" morph tend to display faint rosettes on the legs and part of the body, however.The Chinese Golden Cat (dominicanorum) is a *lot* more robust than the Tibetan Cat, and occasionally displays faint rosettes on the legs and belly-freckles - but overall has much plainer and more solid colouration. The subspecies always puts me in mind, in terms of build and colouration, of a puma.
The Indochinese Golden Cat (temminckii) is about as gracile as the Tibetan subspecies, but like the Chinese subspecies it is much more regular in pelage - although the fur colour tends to be brighter than either of the other subspecies. I do not believe this subspecies tends to display rosettes on the legs at all - but I believe the belly is sometimes covered with freckles as in the Chinese.
I've always thought that the "ocelot" morph of Golden Cat is the form in which the close kinship between the taxon and the closely related Marbled Cat (Pardofelis marmorata) is most visible - were it not for the robust facial build of the second photographed animal I could almost imagine it to be a Marbled Cat! Conversely, the nominate Indochinese is the taxon which most resembles the sister species Pardofelis badia, the Bay Cat - which for all the world looks like a pygmy form of Indochinese Golden Cat!
