Stripe-necked mongoose

The stripe-necked mongoose, Urva vitticolla, is a mongoose native to forests and shrublands from southern India to Sri Lanka, distributed in the Western Ghats and in Sri Lanka. Edward Turner Bennett described it in 1835, and two subspecies are recognized. It is rusty brown to grizzled grey with a stout body, short legs, a black stripe along each side of the neck and a mostly black short tail, with a head and body length of 46 to 50 centimeters. Males weigh about 3.1 kilograms and females about 1.7 kilograms. It is diurnal, generally avoids human habitation, usually lives in riparian habitats or near abandoned tanks, and feeds on frogs, crabs, rodents, hares, fowl and reptiles.