Musang Madness

One morning last month I woke up to find a pile of shit on the veranda of my second floor bedroom. It was a load too big for a stray cat to leave for sure! Alarmed, I showed Putu, my pembantu. "Ooooh,” she said, “it must be from musang!" “What's a musang?,” I asked. "Like monkey, like cat, but not monkey or cat." Huh? "Musang come at night to look for fruit in trees." Yikes! Will it come in my bedroom if I leave the door open? "No, musang afraid of light."

On the way to work I asked my driver Made: “What’s a musang?” "Musang lives in trees and comes out at night to search for chickens,” he told me. “The smell is very strong, strong like durian. You can smell from 20 meters away."

I found a few descriptions of this creature on the web:
"a civet-like cat from the East Indies"
"A small animal of Java (Paradoxirus fasciatus), allied to the civets. It swallows, but does not digest, large quantities of ripe coffee berries, thus serving to disseminate the coffee plant; hence it is called also coffee rat."
"This civet-like creature looks like a cross between a cat and a dog with a smooth dark coat and long delicate muzzle. Its tail is as long as its body and its powerful short legs end in large, padded feet."





I woke up one morning about a week later to find that the contents of my fruit bowl had been disseminated. Banana peels were strewn haphazardly around the kitchen and a distinctive musky odor lingered in the air. I confirmed with Putu that indeed the musang had payed a visit to my kitchen in the middle of the night. Since my kitchen is open, we agreed that the only way we could guard against future fruit pillaging was to store all the fruit inside a cabinet at the end of the day.

Last week I returned home late one night to find my entire villa enveloped in darkness. Usually Putu leaves at least a few lights on, but today she had the day off. When I got to the kitchen area I smelled that strong musky odor. Immediately, I knew. I flicked on the kitchen light to see the tail of a big brown animal disappearing out the window. In his wake was a dismembered mango and other fruit bearing his claw marks. The musang had struck again! I cursed the loss of my beloved mango stash and swore never again to forget to put the fruit away!

In my internet research I found this article about an unfortunate religous leader who was mistaken for a musang and shot.

So I have added the elusive musang to the long list of wildlife that frequents my house and yard. The list includes ants and misquitos, of course, as well as bees, giant flying beetles, toads, frogs, geckos, monitor lizards, rats, and stray cats. Well, it's good to know your neighbors I guess!