Research overview: African golden cat camera-trap ecology

The African golden cat is a secretive, rarely seen forest felid of Central and West Africa whose ecology was almost unknown until camera traps began capturing it. This overview surveys how camera surveys, often deployed for broader mammal monitoring, have revealed the golden cat's distribution, color morphs, activity patterns, habitat associations, and responses to logging and bushmeat hunting. It discusses the challenges of studying a low-density forest cat with variable coat coloration that complicates individual identification, and the reliance on occupancy and detection-rate analyses rather than density estimation. The overview highlights notable findings, such as the cat's links to primate prey and forest integrity, and how camera trapping turned a near-mythical species into a subject of quantitative study, informing its conservation in threatened African rainforests.