Showing posts with label Viverridae. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Viverridae. Show all posts

Thursday, April 13, 2017

උගුඩුවා/කලවැද්දා[Uguduwa/Kalawadda]/Common Palm Civet/Toddy Cat/Palm Cat (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus)

Common animal distributed throughout the island, inhabiting rocky outcrops and/or trees in the country side and roofs of houses in urban areas. It is a purely nocturnal mammal and spends the day time curled up, asleep in its day time hideout usually a ceiling of a house in cities where rocky areas or tall trees are not readily available. It is mainly an arboreal animal and  feeds fruits and berries such as papaw, passion fruits, pineapple, kithul (Caryota urens) etc. But Common Palm Civet also eats rats, mice, frogs, birds, spiders, cockroaches as well as domestic chickens. It has a habit of depositing its droppings which often contain large quantities of undigested kithul and other hard-shelled seeds, on the top of large rocks and fallen tree trunks. It breeds throughout the year though more young are seen in the latter part of the year before the North-East monsoon. The young are brought forth in a hole in a tree, dry nook under overhanging rocks or often in a dry corner of a ceiling. Usually litter size is 3 or 4 in Sri Lanka. Except when a mother is accompanied by her broods it is usually seen singly.