Diana Nicolette, age 11, of Latham, N.Y., for her question:
What kind of animal is the civet?
The fierce little weasel of the wilds is a rat eater and we would be sorry to lose him. We would be even sorrier to lose all our little cats. But if such tragedies did occur, we might coax the old world civets to take their places. These furry little mammals also are rat eaters.
Some peop1e call them civet cats and some call them weasel cats, but the civets are neither cats nor weasels. They belong in a group of their own and they do not choose to 11ve in our cool winter climates. Large numbers of them thrive in the warm regions of Asia and Africa where they work like our weasels and small wildcats to keep down the rodent population.
The civets are lithe, long bodied mammals with stubby legs and very long fluffy tails. They have fox like faces with pointed noses, large bright eyes and rounded ears. They wear an assortment of furry coats, some speckled or brindled, some banded or spotted, and some wear tails ringed with black and white like the tail of the raccoon. All civets have sharp nails and some can sheath their claws like a cat.
All civets are expert climbers though some live mostly on the ground. Others are tree dwellers, and a few are talented fishermen who live in and out of the water. Most of them are quick, silent hunters of the night. But one is a night prowling howler and the lazier tree dwellers dine on fruit. Large numbers of these and other assorted civets enjoy life in the jungles of Africa and India, in Bali and Borneo, Malay and Madagascar, southern China and Ceylon.
The ashy gray civet of Africa is spotted and striped with black and his handsome tail is ringed with black and white. This agile hunter may be four feet long, including 18 inches of bushy tail. He resembles the large and the smaller civets of India. The smaller one was taken to destroy the rats of Madagascar and made himself at home there.
The black civet of Borneo has long shaggy fur and a monkey type tail that he uses to hang from the branches. This slow, easy going fellow is a fruit eating tree dweller. Several tree dwelling civets often nest in barns and thatched roofs, and the scrappy little rat catchers always are welcomed. The brown furred otter civet swims and dives for frogs and fish in the streams of Borneo, Sumatra and Malay.
The assorted civets are charming little mammals of the old world and some of them are very handsome. As a rule, they prefer to remain in the wild though a few become half tame. Most of them keep out of sight and not much is known of their family lives. Their fluffy coats are too fragile for the fur market. However, all of them have glands that manufacture strong smelling musk and this fatty substance is used to make perfumes.