Rare footage of elusive golden cat attacking a pangolin

6 May 2014 Last updated at 01:25Help

Footage courtesy of Chester Zoo/Gashaka Biodiversity Project.

Camera traps set up to monitor chimpanzees in Nigeria's Gashaka Gumti National Park have captured rare footage of the elusive African golden cat attacking a pangolin.

Scott Wilson, Head of Field Conservation and Research at Chester Zoo, told BBC Nature: "The golden cat is the least known of Africa's felids, so any additional information and footage of it is exciting."

Africa's golden cat was caught on camera for the first time in 2002 and this is the first time it has been caught on camera in Gashaka Gumti National Park.

The cat leaps upon the pangolin, a long-tailed mammal covered in scaly armoured plates. But the pangolin then appears to escape by curling into a ball, a defensive posture, and rolling away, before the cat returns to inspect its potential prey.

It adds to the limited understanding of this rarely seen jungle cat, strongly suggesting that pangolin are a prey item.

Continued and video