The rusty-spotted cat’s diet isn’t properly documented, but they’re known to be largely carnivorous and eat rodents, poultry, birds, insects, lizards, frogs, and other small mammals.

The diet of the rusty-spotted cat has not been properly documented. Its main prey is reported to be small mammals, such as rodents, and birds. It also takes insects, lizards, and frogs opportunistically, and occasionally poultry. In the Gujarat area, rodents were recorded as its main prey.

Adult rusty-spotted cats of the Sri Lankan subspecies (Prionailurus rubiginosus phillipsi) have been observed eating birds and mammals and occasionally catching a domestic chicken in the wild.

An adult rusty-spotted cat in the Frankfurt Zoo is fed a daily diet consisting of beef muscles in large chunks and small strips, beef heart, two-day-old chicks, one mouse, and 2.5 grams of carrot, apple, boiled egg, and cooked rice. In the zoo, the animals are also given daily mineral supplements and weekly multivitamins, and vitamins K and B are added to the diet twice per week. The animals are occasionally fed banana, germinated wheat, or fish.

On one occasion, a male adult cat at the zoo killed a rabbit weighing 1.77 kilograms. The cat at the time weighed 1.6 kilograms and the night after the killing ate 320 grams of the muscle meat.

Wild-caught kittens in the zoo were fed protein-rich mash, mice, rats, minced beef muscle, and heart at 7 weeks old. The kittens at this time rejected the day-old chicks that were offered.

Sources: (Athreya, 2010; Cat Specialist Group; Dmoch, 1997; Miles, 2013; Sabapara, 1999)
Image: Cloudtail the Snow Leopard