The head is elongated with a narrow muzzle, rhinarium evenly convex above, with wide internarial septum, shallow infranarial portion, and philtrum narrow and grooved, the groove extending only about to the level of the lower edge of the nostrils.

[1] In 1864, John Edward Gray placed the genera Prionodon and Poiana in the tribe Prionodontina, as part of Viverridae.

[2] Reginald Innes Pocock initially followed Gray's classification, but the existence of scent glands in Poiana induced him provisionally to regard the latter as a specialized form of Genetta, its likeness to Prionodon being possibly adaptive.

[4] Furthermore, the skeletal anatomy of Asiatic linsangs are said to be a mosaic of features of other viverrine-like mammals, as linsangs share cranial, postcranial and dental similarities with falanoucs, African palm civet, and oyans respectively.

[8] There is a physical synapomorphy shared between felids and Prionodon in the presence of the specialized fused sacral vertebrae.