Rare feline appears in front of lucky tourist at Thailand national park. See it
While driving through a national park in Thailand, a tourist happened upon a rare sight: an elusive feline appeared on the road in front of him. A video shows the graceful animal and the lucky encounter.
Kittipong Ngamjing visited Kaeng Krachan National Park on March 30. As he drove along the road to a campground, he noticed a spotted cat emerge from the forest ahead of him, Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation said in a March 30 Facebook post.
Wildlife officials later identified the animal as a marbled cat, a mysterious wild cat rarely seen on trail cameras or in-person.
Ngamjing parked on the side of the road and started taking photos and videos.
One of his videos, shared on Facebook by the Thai news outlet MGR Online, shows the marbled cat standing still on the side of the road. It walks toward the forest and leaps elegantly onto the trunk of a fallen tree.
Marbled cats, also known as Pardofelis marmorata, are a vulnerable species native to South and Southeast Asia, according to Thai wildlife officials. They spend most of their time in the treetops and are “similar in size to a domestic cat, with a more thickly furred tail” and “unusually large canine teeth, resembling those of the big cats.”
Conservation officials estimate that there are less than 10,000 marbled cats left in the wild.
Wildlife rangers can spend years working in areas with marbled cats and never see one, Mongkol Chaiyaphakdi, the head of Kaeng Krachan National Park, said in the Facebook post. As a result, marbled cats are considered one of the country’s rarest and most mysterious animals.
Ngamjing’s sighting is a positive sign for conservation efforts at Kaeng Krachan National Park, officials said. The park is in southern Thailand, a roughly 120-mile drive southwest from Bangkok and near the border with Myanmar.
Google Translate was used to translate the Facebook posts from Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation and the Thai news outlet MGR Online.
This story was originally published April 3, 2025 at 12:39 PM with the headline "Rare feline appears in front of lucky tourist at Thailand national park. See it."
