Volume 82, Issue 4

Llanganates National Park (LNP) was created in the Andes of Ecuador with the goal of protecting the biodiverse biota of the Napo and Pastaza river watersheds. Data on richness and abundance of the mammal community in this park are scarce. From February to August 2016 we installed 58 camera-trap stations along an altitudinal gradient ranging from 2000 to 4000 m. With a sampling effort of 2320 trap-nights, we recorded 2034 pictures of 13 species of large native mammals, 10 of which are included in Ecuador’s Red List of Endangered Mammal Species. Relative abundance ranged from 0.17 to 3.58 photos/100 trap-nights. Our results are similar to those of other protected areas in the Ecuadorian Andes. During field work, we found evidence of uncontrolled and threating activities for conservation. There is an urgent need to strengthen patrol and law enforcement in the park to reduce human impacts on wildlife and habitat.

Small mammal populations respond to environmental changes in secondary riparian forest remnants in different ways, depending on the influences of biotic and abiotic variables. The present study evaluated how habitat/microhabitat structure and food availability influence small mammal assemblages in restored riparian forest remnants. Pitfall traps disposed in three linear transects were used to collect small mammals during 9 months of field work. General linear models were built to test the hypothesis that microhabitat structure (litter biomass and type – leaves and branches) and food availability (richness of zoochoric tree species and arthropods) influence species richness and abundance of small mammals. Three hundred and eighty-two individuals belonging to 14 species were captured. Biomass and type of litter (leaves or branches) provided greater structural to microhabitats, allowing the coexistence of morphologically similar species. Besides, food availability influenced foraging strategies of marsupials, forcing them to use the forest floor when zoochoric plants were rare. Thus, litter structure and food availability, allowing spatial segregation of the small mammal species using the forest fragments. We concluded that the maintenance of small mammals and their ecosystem services in restored riparian forests are dependent on habitat structure and food availability, thus, litter and zoochoric plants should be conserved in riparian forest fragments, especially those reforested.

The use of space in mammals may vary according to sexual dimorphism, mating system and territorial behavior in order to ensure optimization of the reproductive success of each sex and the interactions with other species. In the present study, the determinants of home range (HR) size of males and females of Gracilinanus agilis (Burmeister 1854) were evaluated in a savanna remnant in central-western Brazil. We used live traps and capture-mark-recapture to estimate HR size. Using the method of minimum convex polygon, we estimated the HR of 24 individuals. The species showed sexual dimorphism, with males showing larger body size. The HR estimated was 0.38±0.41 ha and the highest estimated HR was for a male, with 2.08 ha. Females’ HR sizes varied according to body mass, food availability and number of captures. The more important predictor for males was the number of females found within their HRs. The overlapping areas between pairs of males were larger than those between pairs of females, suggesting that females have territorial behavior as they had mostly exclusive HRs. Considering that food availability was an important predictor for female HR size, we hypothesize that the territorial behavior in females is related to food resource.

Food consumed by brown bears in the Golestan National Park in Iran was analyzed during autumn 2011. We identified 22 food items in 61 scats, with the most important food items being hawthorn fruit, cherry plum fruit and chestnut-leaved oak hard mast, based on importance value (IV) estimates of 26.4%, 18.1% and 12.9%, respectively. The overall bear diet (percent digestible dry matter) was composed of 77.9% soft mast (i.e. fruit), 21.3% hard mast and small proportions of other vegetation (0.3%) or animal matter (0.4%). One anthropogenic food was identified (vine grape) and was of minor importance (IV=0.2%).

The common marmoset, originally from Northeastern Brazil, has been introduced into several Brazilian states as a result of illegal traffic. Despite the long history of introduction, few studies have described the diet of this primate in regions where it is exotic and none have evaluated its role as a seed disperser. The importance of fruits in the diet of Callithrix jacchus and its potential as a seed disperser were investigated in the Tijuca National Park (TNP, 3.593 ha), southeastern Brazil, where the species is exotic. Data were collected from September 2013 to January 2015, through focal observations. A sampling effort of 361 h of observation resulted in 60 independent feeding records. Fruits were the most often consumed item, comprising 48.3% of the observed feeding records, followed by gum (30%), invertebrates (18.3%) and lichens (3.3%). Seeds from four out of 13 species were swallowed and seeds from seven additional species were found intact in collected feces. These results show C. jacchus’ potential to act as a seed disperser for some plant species, and that should be considered for managing this primate in TNP, where other callitrichids are absent.

Savi’s pine vole, Microtus savii , is the most widespread Italian vole species, an important rodent pest in agriculture and yet one of the least studied species. One of the reasons for this gap in knowledge is that members of this species are quite difficult to capture with standard trapping procedures, being fossorial and rarely active aboveground. For this reason, we developed a protocol that maximizes trapping success. This method requires the identification of active tunnel holes and the placement of traps directly in front of the exits. We also compared capture and recapture rates of Savi’s pine voles in three different trap types: Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Longworth and Ugglan. If properly equipped with food and nesting material, INRA, Longworth and Ugglan traps showed similar capture rates, but the recapture rate of Ugglan traps was the highest of the three kinds of traps. These results, in combination with the species’ fossorial and social habits, lead us to conclude that Ugglan traps are the best suited for studies on Savi’s pine voles. Our results may have implications for planning and implementing management strategies based on traps rather than rodenticides, as well as field studies on other fossorial small mammals.

We took the rare opportunity to observe and quantify spontaneous allosuckling in a captive group of Cavia aperea captured in the wild (a male, two females and their offspring). We recorded behavior interactions between all offspring and each of the adults between days 6 and 20 of life. Infants suckled equally from their mother and from the other female, which differs from a previous report in which mothers typically nursed own young. In addition, infants stayed closer to the other female than to mother or to the father. We discuss these results in the light of the common occurrence of allosuckling in Cavioidea and social structure.

Small terrestrial mammals and their biogeographical affinities were studied on Mount Kitumbeine, one of the little known volcanoes in the Gregory Rift Valley (northern Tanzania). In June, 2015, a total of 10 species, two insectivores and eight rodents, were recorded during a short-time sampling in two high altitude habitats. Taxonomic identification was based on genetic data allowing zoogeographic interpretations. For most of the taxa, there was a clear link with fauna of the northern part of the Eastern Arc Mountains, but there were also species with their core distributions in the Albertine Rift Mountains ( Crocidura montis ) as well as taxa endemic to the volcanic Northern Highlands (e.g. Hanang or Ngorongoro), such as Lophuromys makundi and probably Otomys angoniensis . Comparison of genotyped small mammals from Kitumbeine and neighboring hills with previously collected data revealed the first genetically confirmed Tanzanian records of two species ( C. montis and Lophuromys stanleyi ) and one species ( Lophuromys sabunii ) is reported for the first time from Zambia. The present study thus showed that, even in such well-studied areas like northern Tanzania, a basic faunistic survey of mammals can still bring interesting results stressing the need to study biota in small and poorly known areas.

Murid rodents of the genus Aethomys are one of the most common rodents in drier habitats in sub-Saharan Africa. Among them, the red veld rat Aethomys chrysophilus is the most widespread species with the core distribution located in the Zambezian bioregion. In this study, we describe phylogeographic structure of the species and estimate its age from a time-calibrated phylogeny of the genus. Seven parapatric clades were identified in the mitochondrial cytochrome b phylogeny, where some of the distributions of these clades have been separated by previously described biogeographical divides (Zambezi-Kafue river system, Rukwa Rift and the Eastern Arc Mountains). One internal clade corresponded to populations previously described as a distinct species, Aethomys ineptus . The whole A. chrysophilus complex was estimated to be 1.3 (0.5–2.4) Mya old, with A. ineptus originating 0.7 (0.1–1.4) Mya before present. The internal position of A. ineptus was also recovered in phylogenetic reconstruction based on two nuclear genes and thus it is not a consequence of mitochondrial introgression. In addition, we analyzed skull form variation across the species’ distributional range and found no significant difference between A. ineptus and the rest of A. chrysophilus complex.

The genus Dermanura currently comprises 11 species, four of which occur in Brazil. Dermanura anderseni was previously recorded only in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. Here, we expand the known geographic distribution of D. anderseni over 1000 km eastwards for the Atlantic Forest biome. We captured an adult male specimen in mist-nets set at ground level in the Caju Private Natural Heritage Reserve, Itaporanga D’Ajuda, Sergipe State, northeastern Brazil. Owing to their similarities in external morphology, D. anderseni may be easily mistaken for Dermanura cinerea . Thus, considering that D. cinerea is one of the most common species in the Atlantic Forest of northeastern Brazil, we are alert for the possibility of misidentified specimens in zoological collections.

We report the first Quaternary record of the big-eyed bat Chiroderma villosum from South America based on a left mandible fragment collected in the Gruta dos Brejões, late Quaternary of northeastern Brazil. This material has been identified over the course of our revisionary work of the genus Chiroderma , including all species distributed in South America ( Chiroderma doriae , Chiroderma salvini , Chiroderma trinitatum , Chiroderma villosum and Chiroderma vizottoi ). Our results revealed that several characters of the second lower molar (m2), and of the posterior mandible may be used to identify and to diagnose the South American Chiroderma . We also revisited the historical interpretation of homologies of the lower molar cusps of Chiroderma , and propose a revised molar cusp terminology.

We present data on a new record of Toromys grandis , a species not sampled for almost 60 years. The species is known from the newly-collected specimen and 206 specimens housed in museums worldwide. The gut morphology, consisting of very long intestines and well-developed caecum, suggest that T. grandis is a potential herbivore also adapted to omnivory. Our record at the Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável (RDS) Piagaçu-Purus extends the range of T. grandis approximately 150 km southwestward and represents the second record of the species within a protected area.

We report the recent record of Andersen’s leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros pomona (Andersen 1918) from a narrow cave in the south-east corner of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh. The identification was based on morphometric analysis along with dentition structure. This recent finding speaks to the existence of H. pomona in Bangladesh and extends the range of this species over South Asia.

To assess the success of a European badger reintroduction after 10 years, we monitored the reintroduction area (Regional Park of Montevecchia and Curone Valley, N Italy) using camera-trapping. Badgers were recorded 94 times by 20 camera-traps, spread over 12 out of the 15 1 km 2 grid-squares totally or partially surveyed. Eighteen videoclips recorded cubs, providing evidence of the occurrence of at least two litters. The occurrence of five badger social groups could be assessed, corresponding to 0.9–1.15 individual/km 2 . All suitable habitats of the reintroduction area have been currently colonised.