Mongoose

About the Mongoose

The Javan mongoose (Urva javanica) is a mongoose species native to Southeast Asia. Ichneumon javanicus was the scientific name proposed by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1818. It was later classified in the genus Herpestes, but all Asian mongooses are now thought to belong in the genus Urva.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, several zoological specimens were described, which are now considered subspecies: Herpestes exilis by Paul Gervais in 1841 was a specimen from Tourane in Vietnam. Herpestes rafflesii by John Anderson in 1875 was a specimen from Sumatra.

Mungos rubifrons by Joel Asaph Allen in 1909 were eight adult specimens collected around Wuzhi Mountain in Hainan Island, China. Mungos exilis peninsulae by Ernst Schwarz in 1910 was a skin and a skull of a mongoose collected in Bangkok.

Mungos siamensis by Cecil Boden Kloss in 1917 was a skin of an adult female mongoose collected in northern Thailand. Mungos parakensis by Kloss in 1917 was a skin and a skull of an adult female mongoose from the vicinity of Taiping, Perak in Peninsular Malaysia.

Herpestes javanicus tjerapai by Henri Jacob Victor Sody in 1949 was an adult male mongoose collected in Aceh Province,... Wikipedia →