Thailand has rediscovered the endangered flat-headed cat after nearly three decades, with camera traps recording 29 detections of the elusive feline in Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary between 2024 and 2025—the first confirmed sightings since 1995.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates only 2,500 adult flat-headed cats remain globally, with the species classified as endangered and previously listed as "possibly extinct" in Thailand, making this rediscovery particularly significant for Southeast Asian wildlife conservation efforts.
Most encouragingly, researchers photographed a female flat-headed cat with her cub, demonstrating active reproduction in the area—crucial evidence for a species that typically produces only one offspring at a time and struggles with breeding across isolated habitats.
The domestic cat-sized feline with distinctive round, close-set eyes and flattened forehead inhabits dense wetland ecosystems like peat swamps and freshwater mangroves, environments increasingly threatened by land conversion for agriculture, habitat fragmentation, pollution, disease from domestic animals, and human encroachment.
Veterinarian and researcher Kaset Sutasha of Kasetsart University emphasized that while the rediscovery is exciting, it represents only a starting point for conservation, with the critical challenge being "how to enable them to live alongside us sustainably, without being threatened" as Thailand's peat swamp forests continue facing severe fragmentation pressures.
