Civet at Saigon Zoo, 16/03/12

Labelled as Large-spotted Civet, Viverra megaspila, but the tail with its complete white bands looks rather like a Large Indian Civet, V. zibetha to me. Any thoughts?

(it\'s a new species for me either way!)

Looking at this animal and comparing it with illustrations of both large Indian and large-spotted civets it seems to have characteristics of both- the full banded tail, leg striping and lack of spots seems to suggest a large Indian but then there is the erectile dorsal crest that suggests a large-spotted.

If I were to base it purely on what I can see in the pictures, it looks much more like a large Indian civet.

looks like zibetha to me (the dorsal crest is present in both zibetha and megaspila)

Thanks guys. Was 90% sure it was zibetha (if nothing else, as DesertRhino150 correctly notes - there are no large spots!) but I always like to pass questionable IDs to Trial by ZooChat before they're inked in!

apart for the sign on the cage, there's nothing about the animal that would suggest megaspila to me so I think you can be safe in your 90% assumption