In 1939, Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated them to the genus Prionailurus. The collection of the Natural History Museum, London comprised several skulls and large numbers of skins of leopard cats from various regions. Based on this broad variety of skins, he proposed to differentiate between a southern subspecies P. bengalensis bengalensis from warmer latitudes to the west and east of the Bay of Bengal, and a northern P. bengalensis horsfieldi from the Himalayas, having a fuller winter coat than the southern. His description of leopard cats from the areas of Gilgit and Karachi under the trinomen Prionailurus bengalensis trevelyani is based on seven skins that had longer, paler and more greyish fur than those from the Himalayas. He assumed that trevelyani inhabits more rocky, less forested habitats than bengalensis and horsfieldi.