[2] This genus is defined as including one species native to Southeast Asia: the marbled cat.

[5] The British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock recognized the taxonomic classification of Pardofelis in 1917 as comprising not only the marbled cat but also the Borneo bay cat Pardofelis badia, because of similarities in the shape of their skulls.

[2] In 1939, he described Pardofelis marmorata on the basis of skins and skulls which originated in Java, Sumatra, Darjeeling and Sikkim.

[3][10][11] Pardofelis are small long-tailed, short-headed cats with rounded ears, distinguishable from Prionailurus and related Oriental genera by having the skull higher and more rounded, with the mesopterygoid fossa lanceolate in front and provided with thickened margins or a better developed external crest.

[2] The skull is short, broad, strongly convex in dorsal profile, not comparatively long and low.