[4] Viverra civettina was the scientific name proposed by Edward Blyth in 1862 for a civet specimen from southern Malabar.

In spite of the heavy habitat destruction in the region, the civet still seems unusually threatened for a small, generalist carnivore.

There are remnants of the metatarsal pads on the hind foot as two naked spots, the external a little above the level of the hallux, the internal considerably higher.

[9] Until the 1960s, extensive deforestation has reduced most of the natural forests in the entire stretch of the coastal Western Ghats.

These plantations probably held most of the surviving population, as these were little disturbed and provided a dense understorey of shrubs and grasses.

[3] Interviews conducted in the early 1990s among local hunters indicated the presence of Malabar civet in protected areas of Karnataka.

[3] Until a few decades ago, local merchants in Kerala reared Malabar civets to obtain civetone, an extract from the scent gland, which was used in medicine, and as an aromatic.

Until the 1990s, it was confined to remnant forests and disturbed thickets in cashew and rubber plantations in northern Kerala, where the hunting pressure was another major threat.

[3] During the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown of India, a video clip of an unidentified civet walking the deserted streets of Meppayur was uploaded on Twitter.