Predicted distribution of banded linsang Prionodon linsang (Mammalia: Carnivora: Prionodontidae) on Borneo

Banded linsang Prionodon linsang is restricted to Sundaic South-east Asia and inhabits a wide altitudinal range. It occurs widely in Borneo, including all political units except perhaps South Kalimantan, with many recent records. It has never been studied in the field. Usually, it is recorded only once or a few times on any given cameratrap or spotlighting survey within its range. Only rarely is it among the most commonly found small carnivores. It probably occurs at lower densities than do many small carnivores and conventional survey methods are probably suboptimal at finding it. Its popular reputation for rarity and thus conservation priority has no compelling foundation and seems unlikely to be valid. It is not known or likely to be targeted by human hunters and it has been suggested to be associated with edge and degraded areas. Seventy spatially precise records were used to model its distribution. Habitat reclassification scores for use in the model showed wide variation across respondents: few people have seen banded linsang many times. It is tied to forest, including highly degraded and, perhaps, fragmented areas. The predicted suitable habitat map suggests large overlap between the protected area system and the species’s range, and a large predicted area outside protected areas. Identification of priority areas for the species is thus impracticable. If population densities are typically low, banded linsang might need relatively large landscapes for long-term viability. Without understanding this, and the extent, if any, to which it uses plantation landscapes, it is difficult to speculate how well protected areas and other mechanisms to retain native forest on Borneo will secure representative populations of this species. Another uncertainty important to resolve is the difficulty of interpreting the species’s status through camera-trapping.