Bardia Discovery: Rajan Choudhary, Rusty-Spotted Cat Working Group

One day in 2012, Rajan Choudhary, a naturalist from Bardia National Park in Nepal was guiding an American tourist in his jeep through the park. Game drives are common in this park with the park home to elephants, tigers, dolphins and many other species.

It was late and as they were returning to the hotel - all of a sudden, in the distance on the right-hand side, about ten metres into the forest - he saw this kind of light in the darkness. Now when you're driving at night, you might have noticed that the eyes of animals or people can reflect the light as tiny little beacons.

So they stopped and reversed back to where they saw this light and gazed into the forest. Rajan borrowed this guest's camera - a DSLR with a long lens - to get a better look - it was a cat, a very small cat - but he wasn't sure what species he was looking at.

So what did Rajan and his guest see that night exactly? Listen to the latest episode of Cats of the Wild - link in bio or find it in your favourite podcast app

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