Common Palm Civet Singapore

First Up, I have to thank the Happy Go Lucky couple Cynthia and Charles for bringing me to this location for the Palm Civet, and also your wonderful friend Daphne. Cynthia spotted the Elusive Palm Civet almost a year back at this location. As much as News of it being sighted commonly in Siglap area (Listed Widely Spread but Uncommon, Singapore), I have not been able to see/find it for a period of time.

And just last night, we went back to find it at last year’s location. BAM!, with Charles’s Eagle Eyes, he spotted the Civet high up in the tree. The moment he spotted it with the torch, it was already observing us. It went to hide in the ferns of the large tree and disappeared for a good 20mins. We waited for it to come out from afar, keeping extremely quiet. It came out to peek at us (while hiding most of it’s body in behind 2 trunks as shown) I managed a few photographs of it before it went back into the Ferns(through messy foliage’s and dead branches.) We observed that it was EXTREMELY cautious with it’s movements as it was trying not to being seen. It was really steady, slow and quiet even peeking at us and going back for cover behind the tree trunk. It was vey aware of its surroundings compared to other mammalians I encountered.

It looks like after close to a year, the Civet still lives here, which shows that it is definitely comfortable with the environment it was living in. I am definitely happy of its welfare.

Palm Civets also known as ‘Toddy Cat’, or ‘Musang’, often consume coffee berries and their passed beans are highly sought after to make coffee, known as Kopi Luwak. Mostly arboreal though seen on the ground at times.

Photographed with Nikon D7100 + Nikkor AF-S 600mm F4 VR on Wimberley Head Mark II + Gitzo 1548 Mark II @

ISO 500, 1/5th sec, F4, Center Weighted Average, used torch to slightly illuminate environment.

Subject Distance: 11.8 meters

Click on Photo for larger resolution.