The Sulawesi palm civet has a light brownish-chestnut coloured soft and short coat with numerous light hairs intermixed. The underparts vary from fulvous to white; the breast is rufescent. There is a pair of indistinct longitudinal stripes and some faint spots on the hinder part of the back. The whiskers are mixed brown and white. The tail is marked with alternating rings of dark and pale brown, which are indistinct on the under surface, and disappear towards the dark tip. The length of head and body is about 35 in (89 cm) with a 25 in (64 cm) long tail. The skull with the bony palate is much produced backwards, but otherwise resembles that of Paradoxurus hermaphroditus. The teeth differ from those of all the Paradouxurus species in that the two cheek-series run nearly parallel, in place of being widely divergent posteriorly. The Sulawesi palm civet is a fairly large palm civet weighing about 3.8–6 kg (8.4–13.2 lb).