Preliminary observations on home ranges and natural history of Scotinomys teguina in Costa Rica
-
David O. Ribble
and
Galen B. Rathbun
Abstract
We conducted a brief radiotelemetry study of Scotinomys teguina (Alston’s singing mice) in Costa Rica to better understand their natural history and spatial ecology. We radio-collared five mice, one of which was quickly eaten by a pitviper. The home ranges of the remaining mice were in moist habitats and ranged from 255 to 1620 m2, with extensive overlap between adjacent individuals. Singing mice, being small, diurnal, uniformly dark-colored insectivores foraging in dense forest floor habitats, have an adaptive syndrome similar to soricids, which may be due to the low diversity of shrews through Central America.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Debra Hamilton, Fern Perkins, and Meyer Guevara Mora from the Monteverde Institute, and Federico Chinchilla, Mancho Calderon, and especially station manager Marvin Hidalgo for guidance and facilitating our work at the Monteverde Biological Station. Mackenzie Hewes graciously handed over some S. teguina she captured as part of her Peromyscus study. Ribble was supported by a Murchison Term Professor position and funds from the Department of Biology at Trinity University. Our research was approved by the animal use committee at Trinity University (no. 050615 DR1). Finally, we thank the Costa Rican National Conservation System for sanctioning this research (SINAC Research Permit no.: 014-2016-INV-ACAT).
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Ecology
- High altitude ungulate communities in southwest China
- The effect of urban and rural habitats on activity budgets of the endangered Northern Plains sacred langur, Semnopithecus entellus (Dufresne, 1797) in Jessore, Bangladesh
- Hyladelphys kalinowskii in French Guiana: new observations and first notes on its nesting biology
- Small mammal communities on beaches and lakeside farmland in the Poyang Lake region after the Three-Gorges Project
- Environmental determinants of activity variation of an overlooked burrowing rodent: the Indian crested porcupine
- Advances on the group composition, mating system, roosting and flight behaviour of the European free-tailed bat (Tadarida teniotis)
- Bats in a Cerrado landscape of Northern Brazil: species occurrence, influence of environmental heterogeneity and seasonality, and eight new records for the State of Tocantins
- Population status and migration trends of Marco Polo argali (Ovis ammon polii) in Pakistan
- Direct evidence of scavenging behaviour in the garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus)
- Preliminary observations on home ranges and natural history of Scotinomys teguina in Costa Rica
- Evolutionary biology
- A new abnormality record in bats: a teratological condition or skull trauma due to tooth avulsion in Noctilio leporinus?
- Dental anomalies in Caluromys (Marsupialia, Didelphimorphia, Didelphidae, Caluromyinae) and a reassessment of malformations in New World marsupials (Didelphimorphia, Microbiotheria and Paucituberculata)
- A short review and worldwide list of wild albino rodents with the first report of albinism in Coendou rufescens (Rodentia: Erethizontidae)
- Conservation
- New records of Saimiri collinsi Osgood, 1916 (Cebidae, Primates), with comments on habitat use and conservation
