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Mammal

Small Indian Civet

Viverricula indica

हिन्दी: छोटा भारतीय कस्तूरी बिलाव

IUCN: Least Concern
Small Indian Civet (Viverricula indica) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Jamwa Ramgarh, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name
Viverricula indica
Hindi name
छोटा भारतीय कस्तूरी बिलाव
Family
Viverridae, order Carnivora
Group
Mammal
Conservation status
Least Concern

A shy night prowler with a ringed tail.

  • Spot it Grey-tan coat with dark spots and a ringed tail.
  • Home Scrub, forests and villages.
  • Food web Eats rodents, small birds and fruit, and spreads seeds.
  • Why it matters Eats rodents and fruit, controlling pests and spreading seeds at night.

Read more: Small Indian civet on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 1 verified record of this species on iNaturalist in 2009, in Jamwa Ramgarh.[20]
  • RajasthanHis note on one photo reads “Killed in road accident”.[20]

Sources

  1. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
  2. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  3. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  4. Wikidata (Hindi labels for species) (database). Open data, used for Hindi common names.
  5. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
  6. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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