The Hemigalinae are a
subfamily of the
viverrids denominated and first described by
John Edward Gray in 1864.[1]
Hemigalinae species are native to Southeast Asia from southern China through Indochina, Malay Peninsula to Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi.[2]
Characteristics
The tails of Hemigalinae
species are ringed. The toes and the middle of the lower part of the tarsus are bald. The
frenum, upper part, and sides of the lower part are hairy. The
orbit is imperfect.[1]
Hemigalinae resemble the
Viverrinae in having the
scent glands present in both sexes and wholly perineal, but differing by their simpler structure, consisting in the male of a shallower,
smaller pouch, with less tumid lips, situated midway between the
scrotum and the
penis, but not extending to either. In the female, the scent glands consist of a pair of swellings, each with a slit-like orifice, situated one on each side of the
vulva and a little behind it and on a common eminence, the perineal area behind this eminence being naked. The
prepuce is long and pendulous. The feet are nearly intermediate in structure between those of the
digitigrade Viverrinae and the semiplantigrade
Paradoxurinae, but more like the latter, both the
carpal and
metatarsal pads being well developed, double, and joining the
plantar pad below, and as wide as it is at the point of contact. But the feet, with the pads, are considerably narrower, the carpals and metatarsals converging and meeting above so that a much larger area of the under surface is hairy. The area between the four main digits and the plantar pad is covered with short hair, and the pads of the third and fourth digits of the hind foot are separated as in the Viverrinae, not confluent as in the Paradoxurinae. The retractile
claws are not protected by skin-lobes.[3]
^Pocock, R. I. (1939).
"Hemigalinae". The fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Vol. Mammalia. – Volume 1. London: Taylor and Francis. pp. 450–457.