It is a shaggy, low-slung, dog-like animal with an ornate pattern of bands and blotches on body and tail. Black limbs and a boidly marked face mask with pale for head and black eye patches. The hair is coarse and loose. It can be found in forested or sub-forested areas. It is an omnivorous. It feeds on vertebrates and plants mainly the roots, shoot and leaves. It also able to eat poisonous fruits, distastefull insects like locust, millepedes and dangerus snakes. Vertebrates are beaten deeply, shaken violently and then dropped. The civet cat is solitary.