Collared Mongoose

About the Collared Mongoose

The collared mongoose (Urva semitorquata) is a mongoose species native to Borneo and Sumatra in Indonesia, and a possible presence in the Philippines. It is classified as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. In 1846, British biologist John Edward Gray proposed the scientific name of Herpestes semitorquatus for a dark brown mongoose specimen collected from the island of Borneo. In 1919, Herbert C. Robinson and Cecil Boden Kloss placed them in the genus Mungos and proposed the name Mungos semitorquatus uniformis for the specimens of two collared mongooses collected from Ophir district in West Sumatra. The collared mongoose belongs to the family Herpestidae, which includes mongooses native to Africa and Asia. Since the initial description of the species by Gray, the collared mongoose had been assigned various scientific names. It was re-classified under the Herpestes genus in 1952 by Colin Campbell Sanborn. In 2009, Southeast Asian mongooses including the collared mongoose were placed in the genus Urva. The collared mongooses in Borneo and Sumatra exhibit little genetic divergence.

The collared mongoose has a body length of up to 43 cm (17 in), and weighs... Wikipedia →