Reviewer A: 1. Name of the species The species ...

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stating that further study on taxonomy, distribution status and ecology of Asian small- clawed otter in Eastern India would help in understanding the subspecies ...
Reviewer A: 1. Name of the species The species name has been corrected as per the comments; from A. cinerea to A. cinereus 2. fills? Look at the map. There remains a very large gap between Odisha and the W Ghats. The main text should speculate whether the present records have merely reduced the known gap, which is likely to be real, or whether the W Ghats population is contiguous with Odisha. The loose statement here, that the gap has been filled by these records, is indefensible] In this report it is not possible to ascertain the subspecies status, but it is possible that both the subspecies might occur in Odisha because A. c. cinerus is known to be distributed in Kolkata, which is not far from Similipal Tiger Reserve and the Eastern Ghats population may correspond to A. c. nirnai. Hence the abstract has been modified stating that further study on taxonomy, distribution status and ecology of Asian smallclawed otter in Eastern India would help in understanding the subspecies status and extent of its geographical range. Furthermore, AScO can be considered is a relict population, restricted to wetter zones of Eastern India. 3. This is a singularly useless statement. Summarise what the results of that assessment were – far more helpful than saying merely that such as assessment was carried out] The sentence has been removed to avoid confusion. 4. Illiger named it in the genus Lutra, a female genus, where the species-group name correctly ends –a. When transferred to the masculine genus Aonyx, it changes its ending to –us]]], A. cinereus fulvus [[[‘A. cinerea fulvus’ is nonsense – fulvus is (correctly) in the masculine form and cinerea in the feminine!] The name of the species has been changed. Thanks for the information. 5. Actually it would be conventional to write ‘A. c. [subspecies name] – not laboriously spell out the species name in each place] The species names were abbreviated as per the suggestions. 6. Are you sure this means specifically modern Assam and not the pre-1940s usage for a much larger area, including Arunacahal Pradesh, for which there are recent records? Assam, before 1940 definitely mean Old Assam, so recent distribution records were also referred. 7. Were they distinct from all other species of small carnivore which might be in that habitat? Any objective validation these identifications were correct? If so, give it; if not, consider listing these records as provisional. To avoid confusion the sentence has been reconstructed as “Foot prints of Asian smallclawed otter recorded during the study (n=51) were quite distinct from other otter species found in the distribution range, as inferred from the absence of claw marks and reduced webbing4,7 and to avoid confusion foot prints were recorded only from the sites where other otter signs, such as tracks, spraints and holts were found.”

8. Crab-eating Mongooses in SE Asia – is there not an equivalent animal in Orissa? Any objective validation these identifications were correct? If so, give it; if not, consider listing these records as provisional. Crab-eating mongoose is not yet recorded from Odisha. However, occurrence Stripenecked mongoose was recently confirmed by PPM from several parts of Odisha based on sighting and photographs (Nayak & Mohapatra- communicated to JBNHS) and this species is also found in riparian zone but the spraint of AScO comprises higher percentage of exoskeleton of crabs. 9. Article must contain at least one unambiguously identifiable photograph of the animal. Otherwise these are just unvalidated sight-records, with acceptance based on trust and hope that the authors know what they were doing – something which is often not enough with species-level identifications of otters]. We hope that the additional photographs incorporated in the figure – 2 will support confirming the species status. 10. Habitat destruction due to changing land-use pattern in the form of development, illegal encroachment in the sanctuaries, increasing forest dependency and reduction in prey biomass due to over-exploitation seem to be [[[not scientifically demonstrated here, just opinion,; so be more cautious]]] the main threats to this species as they are for other otter species [[[reference to support this statement, or delete it]]]. The sentence has been corrected and supported by reference. 11. Otters in Odisha may be [[[no evidence presented, so write more cautiously]]] facing threats due to large scale fishing activities (even during night), poisoning of water for fishing and poaching. These are our natural history observations. We have monitored otter habitats in Similipal, Karlapat WLS and Kotagarh WLS where such disturbances occur and otter signs have drastically reduced in the areas for many days even couple of weeks. 12. Be explicit as to the purpose of this hunting; pelts only? Something else? Pelts and something else? …… and the pelt? What happens to that? Tribal or non-tribal communities living in and around forested areas are in general “opportunistic criminals”. They hunt for such animals for meat and the body parts such as skin, bile etc are kept. Only in few cases they sell these body parts to local traders or else these body parts are discarded. 13. Somewhere – perhaps the start of this paragraph – the statement needs to be made that the species’s occurrence in this area has presumably been overlooked and that it is exceptionally unlikely that the species is expanding its range into new areas. This may seem too obvious to be worth stating, but the flabbergastingly profound ignorance of animals as animals, rather than as academic datapoints, of many of the people now working in conservation organisations means that key points must be spelt out, not left implied, on the assumption that everyone has some basic minimum level of common sense. They haven’t, in my experience.

The sentence has been modified as “Occurrence of Asian small-clawed otter from Eastern Ghats and other parts of Odisha has presumably been overlooked by previous workers.” 14. this is a very important point, which gives the MS its broader relevance for Current Science (otherwise the note would better be placed in an otter-specific journal such as Otter Specialist Group News); it should thus be in the abstract. The point was raised in abstract stating that “Occurrence of this species in Odisha supports the hypothesis that wetter zones across Eastern India harbor relict population of once continuously distributed humid forest species.” 15. Should speculate whether the present records have merely reduced the known gap, which is nevertheless likely to be real; or whether the W Ghats population is contiguous with Odisha. The loose statement in the abstract, that the gap has been filled by these records, is indefensible. Also, is any comment possible on the subspecies that occurs in Odisha? Although it can be speculated that AScO is distributed across wetter zones of eastern India, in this present paper it was difficult to ascertain the subspecies status. There are also several examples explaining occurrence of humid forest species in Eastern India which were earlier thought to be disjunctly distributed in NE India and Western Ghats (distribution of King cobra, record of Dollar bird, Slender coral snake etc.)- manuscript under preparation. 16. I don’t think this is the correct definition of App II. As far as I recall, App. I bans it; App. II means it can occur under certain conditions. Check this. This is checked and mentioned. 17. Well they might do, I suppose. But given the evidence presented here of directed hunting, shouldn’t the research focus be on the human offtake and development of methods to reduce it to non-threatening levels? What would be the point of studying the species’s ecology, while simultaneously the population is declining for reasons unrelated to its ecology? Much more careful thought needed as to what are the priorities to determine how to conserve this species. The sentence is modified as “Effective conservation planning and awareness programmes by forest department involving biologists, conservation organizations and local communities can save the species from the resulting threats.” 18. Sloppy spelling of botanical names; check spelling of all (I am not familiar with them). What does ‘SL No.’ relate to? There appears no map with numbred points or other use of these numbers; they seem to merely perform the simple and redundant function of numbering the rows!!! Or have I missed something? Botanical names has been corrected and the serial nos. are linked to the map. 19. I have what is presumably this figure (entitled “6205-12239-1-SP.jpg”) and it shows the world range of the species, with Odisha such a small part it is not very effective at communicating the known distribution within the state. It would be better to split this map into two, the world range and a blow-up for Odisha. In the legend the explanation ‘Past distribution records of AScO in Asia’ is totally misleading. Vast tracts of the shaded area lack any records at all and the species’s occurrence there is inferred. The meaning of the shaded area should be changed to ‘Generalised word distribution of AScO as hypothesised before the current records’ or somesuch. It should net end ‘in Asia’ because

this could be taken to imply that the non-Asian part of its range (which of course does not exist) is not mapped. The map legends has been modified accordingly. 20. I don’t seem to have been sent these. Although it is difficult to tell when struggling with these live internet interfaces, so apologies if it is my own incompetence in not being able to find them. Given the levels of species misidentification of otters, the reviewers should see photographs of any claimed extension of known range. Although in this case given the identity and known competence and caution of one of the authors, this might be relaxed. I can understand the view of the reviewer and more photos were provided in the plate showing key characters of the species.

Reviewer B: 1. Authors should see how to provide the references number in the text- “&” is not used between the numbers. References has been arranged accordingly. 2. First paragraph-Line8-9 • Change ‘Coorg ‘ to ‘Kodagu’ • Change ‘Palini’ to ‘Palani’ • There are two good papers on this species from Western Ghats in the recent years. They are better references (Perinchery et al 2011; Prakash et al 2012) The name of the places has been corrected and these above stated references were included.

3. Page 4, First Paragraph- It is better to provide the information based on direct sightings than indirect evidences. The sentence has been modified accordingly.

4. Page 4, Second paragraph-What has been provided is only a qualitative description of the vegetation and other parameters. Drawing a conclusion based on subjective information is not correct. Shorten and rewrite the paragraph. The sentence has been modified with more information and we tried to stress on the fact that this species is a humid forest species and the relict population is still found in the wetter zones of Eastern India. 5. Even in the subsequent paragraphs, more emphasis has been made for the threats and conservation. All the three paragraphs can be made as one small paragraph with proper focus. Further, what the threats and conservation issues are discussed is not new or different from what we know already. Hunting techniques for this species were explained in the paragraph. Although hunting techniques for wild animals seem to be similar, they are different for different species. For example use of dogs in hunting ungulates is a widely used method but use of dogs in otter

hunting is different where the hunters use the dogs to catch the otter when it is flushed out of water. Report of otter hunting in Odisha is also a new record as its has not appeared in the case records since past 3 decades.

6. Page 5, second paragraph is redundant, can be removed. The paragraph has been modified. 7. Page 5, first two sentences should go to the first paragraph of the article and other lines can be deleted. This has been done. 8. Surprisingly, importance of the present sightings is not discussed. Further, since the data on habitat characteristics are collected, how this is different from the other areas are also not discussed. That will be more interesting. Perinchery et al (2011) and Prakash et al (2012) provided more information of habitat parameters that determine the occurrence of the species. Importance of present sightings has been discussed.