Prionailurus planiceps
Silhouette: PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~50%
The flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps) is a small wild cat with short reddish-brown fur. Its head is elongated, and its ears are rounded. Its slender body is 41 to 50 cm (16 to 20 in) long with a tail of 13 to 15 cm (5.1 to 5.9 in), and it weighs 1.5 to 2.5 kg (3.3 to 5.5 lb).
The flat-headed cat was first described in 1827 based on a zoological specimen collected in Sumatra. It is also native to the Thai-Malay Peninsula and Borneo, and inhabits wetlands like mixed freshwater swamp forests, peat swamp forests and lowland freshwater swamps near rivers and coastal areas. It preys foremost on fish, frogs and crustaceans.
The flat-headed cat is threatened by habitat destruction due to conversion for settlements, agriculture and oil palm plantations. It has been listed on the IUCN Red List as Endangered since 2008. The scientific name Felis planiceps was proposed by Nicholas Aylward Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827, who first described a skin of a flat-headed cat specimen collected in Sumatra.
Prionailurus was proposed by Nikolai Severtzov in 1858 as generic name for spotted wild cats native to Asia. He proposed the generic name Ictailurus for the flat-headed cat... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary | 🇲🇾 Malaysia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bangkok Aquarium | 🇹🇭 Thailand |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Flat-headed Cat sighting in Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary on a given day, based on 9 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 25th most-seen of the 26 mammals we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Flat-headed Cat in Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary on a given day, against under 5% in April–June, August and October–December, the lowest months.
Between 8 and 11 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Flat-headed Cat sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is seen both by day and at night.
Only Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, in our data
Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Flat-headed Cat sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same order: Carnivora
The closest relatives of the Flat-headed Cat that you can see in Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary (order Carnivora, Carnivorans) are Common Palm Civet (about 40%), Malay Civet (about 40%) and Small-toothed Palm Civet (about 40%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Flat-headed Cat is recorded against all the mammals logged in Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary (9 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
