The Javan Fishing Cat

[Swampy]

Thought I'd start a new thread on this topic rather than hijacking TLD's cat taxonomy thread further!
For the background, read posts #63, #65-67, and #93 of this thread: TLD's Photographic Guide To The New Felid Taxonomy

Or read these articles:
This one, on the first thorough survey of the range of the Javan fishing cat: http://carnivores.org/javan-fishing-cat/

And this one, on the results of the aforementioned survey: Fishing Cats Quietly Slink Out of Existence in Southeast Asia – National Geographic Blog

Today I stumbled across an article from earlier this month, containing a video that claims to show what might be a Javan Fishing Cat, apparently recorded in August 2016:
Fishing Cat Spotted in Indonesia?

While the tail does look short enough to be a fishing cat, i'm not sure i'm convinced it isn't a leopard cat; and what is going on with those leg proportions?

 

[Chlidonias]

Today I stumbled across an article from earlier this month, containing a video that claims to show what might be a Javan Fishing Cat, apparently recorded in August 2016:
Fishing Cat Spotted in Indonesia?

While the tail does look short enough to be a fishing cat, i'm not sure i'm convinced it isn't a leopard cat; and what is going on with those leg proportions?

That's an odd-looking animal. I'm pretty confident in saying it is neither a Fishing Cat nor a Leopard Cat. It looks most to me like a feral/domestic cat, although the limb length seems unusually long. As it leaves the frame it has a gait almost like a Crab-eating Macaque which is weird.

 

[Chlidonias]

That's an odd-looking animal. I'm pretty confident in saying it is neither a Fishing Cat nor a Leopard Cat. It looks most to me like a feral/domestic cat, although the limb length seems unusually long. As it leaves the frame it has a gait almost like a Crab-eating Macaque which is weird.

Having said that, I then came across a good still from the video which shows that the patterning seems to fit that of a Fishing Cat. (In the video I watched on the earlier link I can't see much apart for on the legs).

 

[birdsandbats]

That's an odd-looking animal. I'm pretty confident in saying it is neither a Fishing Cat nor a Leopard Cat. It looks most to me like a feral/domestic cat, although the limb length seems unusually long. As it leaves the frame it has a gait almost like a Crab-eating Macaque which is weird.

I agree, it is a very weird cat. Is a macaque in a cat suit ruled out?

 

[DesertRhino150]

I was just browsing the gallery of Joel Sartore's Photo Ark and found a series of photographs that are labelled as a Javan fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus rhizophoreus), which is under the care of PT. Alam Nusantara Jayatama in Jakarta.

While I'm not certain what a Javan fishing cat actually looks like (are they supposed to look very different from the mainland subspecies?), the pictured animal looks very much like a leopard cat to me.

ANI105-00088 - Joel Sartore

 

[TeaLovingDave]

I was just browsing the gallery of Joel Sartore's Photo Ark and found a series of photographs that are labelled as a Javan fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus rhizophoreus), which is under the care of PT. Alam Nusantara Jayatama in Jakarta.

While I'm not certain what a Javan fishing cat actually looks like (are they supposed to look very different from the mainland subspecies?), the pictured animal looks very much like a leopard cat to me.

ANI105-00088 - Joel Sartore

Yep that's pretty clearly a Sunda Leopard Cat.

 

[Arizona Docent]

The photo from Joel Sartore is absolutely a leopard cat and definitely NOT a fishing cat. Pretty embarrassing for a page with the National Geographic logo to have such a blatant error. Also @Swampy the video link in the first post is not working (I get an error message "page not found").

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

The photo from Joel Sartore is absolutely a leopard cat and definitely NOT a fishing cat. Pretty embarrassing for a page with the National Geographic logo to have such a blatant error. Also @Swampy the video link in the first post is not working (I get an error message "page not found").

I'm not suprised really, the editing of Nat Geo magazine (just look who took it over in a corporate grab recently) has been slipping fast and becoming more tabloidy over the past few years.

 

[Arizona Docent]

I should clarify the page itself is not produced by National Geographic (that I know of), it is produced by Joel Sartore, but he used the NG logo (with permission I am sure) to indicate they are a cosponsor of the project. Still he should be more careful. In his first Photo Ark book (which I had but have given away) there were a couple errors as well, like a "leopard" that I am certain was a leopard-jaguar hybrid.

 

[Neva]

@Arizona Docent, do you think about that photo of leopard? ANI019-00255 - Joel Sartore
The head looks weird to me. Rosettes don't surprise me much - they are atypical, however I could imagine a leopard with similar pattern.

Here (https://live.firstnews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/02/GettyImages-634350908.jpg) is a cat which is suppose to be a female leopard from Batu zoo photographed by Aman Rochman. Her head or front-legs looks "leopardish", however pattern is completely atypical. Anyway, I don't know how high is a risk if this could be also a hybrid .

 

[Chlidonias]

I was just browsing the gallery of Joel Sartore's Photo Ark and found a series of photographs that are labelled as a Javan fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus rhizophoreus), which is under the care of PT. Alam Nusantara Jayatama in Jakarta.

While I'm not certain what a Javan fishing cat actually looks like (are they supposed to look very different from the mainland subspecies?), the pictured animal looks very much like a leopard cat to me.

ANI105-00088 - Joel Sartore

Yep, as @TeaLovingDave says, that is a Leopard Cat. It is interesting how little Joel Satore seems to know about animals considering how much of his life he has committed to photographing rare species. He simply labels them as whichever species or subspecies he is told by the zoo.

 

[TeaLovingDave]

He simply labels them as whichever species or subspecies he is told by the zoo.

Which is one reason why, elsewhere on PhotoZoo, the exact same animals are labelled as both Grey Mouse Lemur and Ganzhorn's Mouse Lemur in photographs taken several years apart

 

[Chlidonias]

Which is one reason why, elsewhere on PhotoZoo, the exact same animals are labelled as both Grey Mouse Lemur and Ganzhorn's Mouse Lemur in photographs taken several years apart

Weren't they re-identified and otherwise look similar (or were formerly combined, or something like that)?

I don't know if that's the same as Satore not knowing the difference between a Fishing Cat and a Leopard Cat; or the way he has "Bengal Tigers" in his photo collection just because that's what the zoos label them as.

 

[TeaLovingDave]

Weren't they re-identified and otherwise look similar (or were formerly combined, or something like that)?

They look completely different, but the European population of Ganzhorn's was initially misidentified by Plzen as an unusually small and rufous morph of Grey Mouse Lemur, then later recognised as distinct but an unknown taxon, and finally identified as Ganzhorn's once the species was described.

For comparison, true Grey Mouse Lemur at Birmingham Nature Centre, followed by Ganzhorn's at Plzen:

So basically, PhotoZoo has photos of them from when they were listed as Grey, and photos of them from after they were recognised as Ganzhorns, and hence the photos are listed under the names Satore was given at the time the photographs were taken, but the site has never been updated to rectify the erroneous identification on the older photographs.... if Satore even realises they *are* the same animals, of course.

 

[Coelacanth18]

It is interesting how little Joel Sartore seems to know about animals considering how much of his life he has committed to photographing rare species. He simply labels them as whichever species or subspecies he is told by the zoo.

Although he has been doing nature photography for a very long time, it may be worth mentioning that Joel Sartore doesn't hold a science degree and is very much a photographer/advocate rather than a wildlife expert. Given that, I'm not surprised that he would take a zoo's species identification at face value... though I admit his work would probably benefit from a little more fact-checking.

 

[TinoPup]

Sartore also has a lot of really outdated latin names, as well. I've been putting together my own photo thing of different species and subspecies (ungulates and carnivores), and thought he would be a good resource... not so much. And for someone who claims to photograph the world's rarest animals, etc, he has photos of remarkably few that are rare.

Although he has been doing nature photography for a very long time, it may be worth mentioning that Joel Sartore doesn't hold a science degree and is very much a photographer/advocate rather than a wildlife expert. Given that, I'm not surprised that he would take a zoo's species identification at face value... though I admit his work would probably benefit from a little more fact-checking.

How many of us have degrees, though? It doesn't take much to learn about species, especially if you're constantly around them and are claiming to be an advocate for them.

 

[Coelacanth18]

How many of us have degrees, though? It doesn't take much to learn about species, especially if you're constantly around them and are claiming to be an advocate for them.

No idea. But he's photographed over 12,000 species, which is quite a high number of species for anyone to learn. Considering how busy he is and the fact that he is primarily a photographer, I expect it's inevitable that he will make a few ID mistakes.

 

[Arizona Docent]

@Arizona Docent, do you think about that photo of leopard? ANI019-00255 - Joel Sartore
The head looks weird to me. Rosettes don't surprise me much - they are atypical, however I could imagine a leopard with similar pattern.

Here (https://live.firstnews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/02/GettyImages-634350908.jpg) is a cat which is suppose to be a female leopard from Batu zoo photographed by Aman Rochman. Her head or front-legs looks "leopardish", however pattern is completely atypical. Anyway, I don't know how high is a risk if this could be also a hybrid .

Both of those are definitely leopard-jaguar hybrids. The one from Joel Sartore is from Houston Zoo and there is a thread on here somewhere that discusses that very animal. A zookeeper told a visiting ZooChatter that it was likely a hybrid that they got from a rescue center that closed (not named, but I assume to be the one near San Antonio that I think was called Animal Orphanage). I saw and photographed it myself at Houston Zoo a short while later. It was housed with a black generic leopard and they just labelled the exhibit as leopard. I know nothing about the second cat (Batu Zoo) but based on appearance I am confident in my appraisal of it as leopard-jaguar. For what it's worth there is also a hybrid in my state of Arizona at a rescue place called Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center (which correctly identifies it as a hybrid).

 

[birdsandbats]

The photo from Joel Sartore is absolutely a leopard cat and definitely NOT a fishing cat. Pretty embarrassing for a page with the National Geographic logo to have such a blatant error. Also @Swampy the video link in the first post is not working (I get an error message "page not found").

I found one where a Ball Python was called a Boa Constrictor.

 

[d1am0ndback]

I found one where a Ball Python was called a Boa Constrictor.

Can you link it here?

And for someone who claims to photograph the world's rarest animals, etc, he has photos of remarkably few that are rare.

And this is one of the most incorrect statements Iv'e ever heard. As mentioned he has photographed over 12,000 species, which accounts for well over "few" that are rare. If you don't believe me take the time to go through some of his photos and reflect on how many of those species you've seen.