Kaeng Krachan bio-diversity hot spot

Even without the legs, a fantastic capture!
Elusive indeed. Have spend a lot of time in the jungle, but have yet to see one. One day...
I thought it is primarily a terrestial species, so you would think that with camera traps it should be relatively easy to catch.
BUt apparently it is harder than expected. Probably means low population density? Which raises the question why that is. Maybe competition with the larger cats. Or just naturally a species that has large territories? With the small average leopard territory size known from Kaeng Krachan you would think that a species this size should be able to survive in relatively small areas. Though I just read on wiki that they learned from two radio collared cats that average territory size is quite large. Not sure where the research was done. But it compared to the average female tiger territory size knwon from Thailand.
Quite surprising.
I wonder if the population will increase in a park like e.g. Khao Yai where there is little competition of other big cats. Probably only Clouded Leopard, and those probably focus more on arboreal prey, at least I guess more than the Asian Golden Cat.

Looking at the facial markings and uniform coat coloration of this species, I start to understand the wrongly depicted Flat-headed Cat on the collage of mammals of Kaeng Krachan shown at the Ban Krang camp.

Hopefully you will get some of the other elusive cat species that should occur in the park, like Jungle Cat, Fishing Cat, and Marbled Cat.
Good luck!

Thanks Bootly and Flip-flops

The photo was taken May 10th.

From "all" of our captures of this species theres really only three things that they lead me to assume, even though we have not had enough captures to have any valid theories to be honest. The animals we captured on video and stills seem to have a diurnal preference and b) the animals in our captures don't prefer to walk along the trails - they all have walked across trails and lastly, c) they are active hunters of rats and mice as we have video of them doing this twice. It will be quiet for us now as the rains cause all kinds of issues with the cameras and wetness causes a lot of highlights from the flash making the pic quality poorer.

I have read that a radio tracking research on these Asian Golden Cats revealed (unexpected) diurnal activity.
Cool that your captures confirm that.
Hope to see one some day.

I have only seen Fea's Muntjac from about km18 and further in the park. Also near km27 - 28 I have seen them various times. Pretty much 99.9% sure that is what you have seen in that location. Next time look at the tail which is black with white in Fea's Muntjac. but 'red' with white for Red Muntjac. Overall Fea's Muntjac appears darker color, though I have seen very dark Red Muntjacs so that is not the most decisive feature.

Maybe you have never heard a Red Muntjac properly barking, because it sounds like true barking. I have heard both species and apart from guessing based on the location I still don't dare to differentiate the two species based on call, it is highly similar.
I guess the camera trappers on this forum will know a bit more about range of both species, but I can not recall having seen Red Muntjac past km 17 - 18. Maybe Paul can comment if they have camera trapped them significantly further in.
My personal guess (based on my personal sightings) is that where the forest gets more humid and darker, the Fea's Muntjac more or less replaces the Red Muntjac. The Fea's Muntjac are actually not really rare, but it's just that the type of forest makes them not so easily seen compared to the Red Muntjac that does not shy away from more open areas and therefore becomes more visible. However if I compare my hikes in proper forest e.g. in Khao Yai with my hikes at the higher elevation in Kaeng Krachan, seeing red muntjac in proper forest (not near open areas) is equally difficult as seeing Fea's Muntjac in the forest.
And quite often you can see both species in pairs.

And about the bee-eaters.
Indeed both Red-Bearded and Blue-Bearded Bee-eaters are present in KKC. According to the bird books Red-bearded is found further North than KKC.
Blue-Bearded will probably be down to about Prachuap Khiri Khan province. Still interesting though to see both species in the same tree, I haven't seen them together. But both species are not really uncommon in KKC, I would say.