Tiny wild cat spotted in Thailand for first time in 30 years

Camera traps in Thailand have captured adorable passersby with significant implication for the country’s conservation efforts. While these furry creatures might look like your average house cat, they’re actually wild flat-headed cats (Prionailurus planiceps). These extremely rare wild felines weigh less than half an average pet cat, and they’ve been detected in Thailand for the first time since 1995. The happy news was confirmed by a survey from Thailand s Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation, and Panthera Thailand, a global wild cat conservation organization, according to a statement emailed to Popular Science.

“Even species thought to be lost can be rebuilt if we invest in protecting the habitats they depend on,” said Wai Ming Wong, Panthera Small Cat Conservation Science Director. “Flat-headed cats’ persistence in Thailand suggests that these ecosystems still hold remarkable biodiversity but also underscores how urgently we must conserve and restore them before they vanish entirely.” Flat-headed cats are named for their particular flat forehead and extended skull.

They are Southeast Asia’s smallest wild cat, and have short bodies, slim legs, webbed toes, and stubby tails. They’re also difficult to study. Besides their limited population numbers, they’re small, nocturnal, and favor hard-to-access environments—tropical rainforests, swampy and peat-swamp forests, marshes, lakes, streams, and riverine forests.

Flat-headed cats are the smallest wild cat in Southeast Asia. Image: DNP/Panthera Thailand Researchers believe them to be close relatives of leopard cats and fishing cats, and estimate a total population size of 2,500 adults.

Flat-headed cats are one of the most threatened wild cats—the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies them as Endangered, and “possibly extinct” within Thailand. Nevertheless, remote camera trap images confirmed the wild cat’s reappearance.The traps picked up 13 detections in 2024 and 16 in southern Thailand’s Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary in 2025, within the context of the species’ largest survey.

Notably, a mother and her cub were also spotted, verifying the species’ active reproduction in the area. It’s an important find, since flat-headed cat mothers usually have just one kitten  at a time. A rare image of a Flat-headed Cat (Prionailurus planiceps) at night, Kinabatangan River, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. Image: Sebastian Kennerknecht/Panthera.

The flat-headed cat is currently threatened by human-driven habitat loss from land conversion, fishing, agricultural encroachment, hunting, waterway pollution, and domestic animals transmitting diseases. Competition for space further decreases its range, limiting the wild cat to mostly far-flung, untouched environments whose protection is thus crucial. “With this new finding, which we plan to submit to the IUCN Red List Committee, we hope the species’ status can be updated to something other than ‘Possibly Extinct,’” Rattapan Pattanarangsan, Conservation Program Manager for Panthera Thailand, tells Popular Science, while adding that the Committee might need more data they don’t possess yet.

“Generating this level of evidence will likely require several years of further study before the species’ status can be fully reassessed.” The announcement comes in time for National Wildlife Protection Day on December 26. The flat-headed cat detection will lay the groundwork for DNP and Panthera Thailand’s conservation planning regarding the species. The post Tiny wild cat spotted in Thailand for first time in 30 years appeared first on Popular Science.