Volume 89, Issue 4

Evaluation of habitat suitability and landscape connectivity is critical for managing habitats of threatened species. The fragmented and declining populations of South China sika deer ( Cervus pseudaxis ) are now restricted to eastern China. Using infrared cameras, we monitored the species’ occurrence in Jiangxi Taohongling and Zhejiang Qingliangfeng Nature Reserves and assessed environmental factors, including terrain, vegetation, water availability, and human disturbance. Habitat suitability was evaluated using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model, while least-cost path analysis was applied to identify potential corridors linking current and suitable habitats. Our findings show that habitat suitability is primarily influenced by proximity to railways, vegetation type, and distance to main roads. Highly and moderately suitable habitats, covering 6,686 km 2 (9.2 %) and 2,347 km 2 (3.2 %) of the study area, were concentrated near the two reserves. Additionally, we identified five potentially suitable habitats and delineated five potential corridors, with an average least-cost path length of 62.6 km (range: 4–106 km), connecting nearby reserves. This study offers critical insights for conserving South China sika deer habitats and provides a framework for protecting other threatened species with similar ecological requirements.

Amazon and Cerrado biomes embrace a vast parcel of Brazilian biodiversity, yet remain understudied in terms of species diversity and distribution, particularly in transitional zones. We investigated the patterns of distribution and multiples facets of medium- to large-bodied mammal diversity across the ecotonal Guaporé river basin, including the relationship of biodiversity variations according to landscape-scale features, such as forest remnants and agribusiness. We sampled mammal fauna via camera-trapping and census, across six independent sites, totalling a sampling effort of 540 camera-trap-days and 720 h census. We also extracted landscape-scale covariables to further predicts the variation in mammalian diversity. Our results revealed that all sites have similar species richness, whereas the zeta-diversity decline ∼90 % when all sites were compared. Differences in species richness – even inconspicuous – and decay of shared species can be associated to the environmental gradient and distance among sites, evidencing a faunistic transictions prompted by rarity and endemism in transitional regions and human-induced landscape changes. The variations in the beta-diversity were caused by a turnover-type structure, once ∼66 % of the balanced variation in composition was due to changes in species distribution across the gradient. Considering the imminent threats to the natural habitats, it is crucial to prioritize the conservation of any natural habitat across the Guaporé basin, given that gamma diversity depends on a vast quantity of native areas. This strategy serves as a fundamental cornerstone for maximizing overall biodiversity conservation across tropical forests.

Mammal studies in the South of the Yucatan Peninsula often focus on local diversity, abundance, or subsistence hunting impacts. Our study uniquely examines the effects of water availability and human disturbance on medium- and large-sized terrestrial mammal diversity. Using 109 camera traps across two areas, Silvituc and Centenario, with differing human influence and water availability, we recorded 4,105 independent events representing 23 species. Silvituc, with higher water availability and lower hunting pressure, exhibited slightly greater species diversity (D1) than Centenario. Rank-abundance curves and NDMS analysis highlighted differences in mammal community structure between the two areas. Our findings suggest that water availability and hunting pressure may influence the presence of certain species, with potential impacts on habitat-dependent mammals. These results underscore the need for tailored management strategies in the Natural Protected Area, particularly to address anthropogenic effects in the Centenario area.

Ngoc Linh Nature Reserve in Quang Nam was established in 2016 to protect important habitats and wildlife in the southern part of the Annamites in Vietnam. While Ngoc Linh was known to be home to many threatened species, as it is a recently established protected area, its mammal fauna has not been systematically surveyed since the early 2000s. To provide updated baseline data on the presence and status of the mammals in the region, I conducted a systematic camera trapping survey in Ngoc Linh Nature Reserve in 2024. The collected data was analyzed using the relative abundance index and occupancy model. A total of 1,424 independent records of at least 19 identifiable taxa were documented, with the Pallas’ squirrel (RAI = 17.901, ψ  = 0.770), the ferret-badger (RAI = 17.116, ψ  = 0.884), and the crab-eating mongoose (RAI = 7.071, ψ  = 0.817) among the most commonly recorded. While several highly threatened mammals were confirmed, this study failed to record a number of species that were reported in Ngoc Linh in the late 1990s, as well as in surrounding areas in recent years. The result from this study will help conduct proper conservation measures to better protect the remaining species.

Mist nets are widely used for studying bats, but when captured, these animals become vulnerable to predation. Here we describe an occasion when three bats were killed and one was injured by Cerdocyon thous attacks during fieldwork in Maringá (Paraná, Brazil). To avoid predation events, nets were inspected every 10 min (instead of 15 min). After the attacks, the researchers stayed by the net and no further attacks were recorded, confirming that constant monitoring can prevent casualties. Considering the challenges of sampling urban fragments, this note highlights the importance of knowing the diversity and understanding the behavior of predators such as C. thous in these areas.

The largest rodent of the Australian and Oceanian zoogeographic regions, the Subalpine Woolly Rat Mallomys istapantap, endemic to the tropical high mountains of New Guinea, has been scientifically observed and documented alive in the wild for the first time. Camera trap images and video, as well as photographs of the habitat (Mt. Wilhelm, 3,200–3,700 masl) and hunting with indigenous people, deepen our understanding of the activity patterns, locomotion, diet, intrageneric elevational partitioning, and behavioural ecology of the woolly rats. I report the first measurements of males of the species and discuss a previously unreported morphological trait. These are the first specimen records in 30 years for this spectacular mammal poorly known to science.

The functions of latrines have been well studied in gregarious or pair-living territorial ungulates, however, there are no field-based studies on latrine behaviour of solitary ungulates with monogamous pair territories. We investigated latrine behaviour of the Japanese serow ( Capricornis crispus ), a solitary and monogamous species. The spatial patterns of latrines did not coincide with the serows’ home range boundaries, and individuals of the same sex did not defecate at the same latrine (i.e., there was no countermarking), which suggests that latrines may not function as territorial marking. During the late-mating season, when males and females tend to live separately, the number of latrine visits by females increased and the probability of defecating was significantly higher, suggesting that females are the signallers, informing their oestrus status to males. Moreover, males also frequently visited the latrines, and latrine sniffing and overmarking were observed only during the late-mating season, suggesting that males may receive information about oestrus from the females’ faeces. Obtaining information on female oestrus directly is difficult for solitary species in which sexes live separately. Although future studies would be required to confirm this hypothesis, our study suggests that latrines may have evolved as female-to-male communication sites in the Japanese serow.

Murina walstoni Csorba et al. 2011, was described from Cambodia, and since then has been recorded from lowland areas of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. However, a single male individual of a tube-nosed bat caught in Tanahun District, Central Nepal on 13 April 2020, was subsequently identified as M. walstoni on the bases of external and craniodental characters, and mitochondrial gene sequencing. This is the first record of the species from South Asia and represents a significant northwest expansion of its global distribution range. Genetic analysis reveals ⁓5 % variation in the barcoding gene sequences between this individual and Southeast Asian specimens; nevertheless, the lack of morphological and mensural differences suggest they belong to the same species. Analyses of more samples and the inclusion of nuclear markers will be necessary to evaluate if this distinct lineage within M. walstoni represents a separate taxonomic unit.

The genus Cryptotis comprises 53 species, 18 of them known from South America, most belonging to the Cryptotis “thomasi” group. Recent discoveries suggest that its diversity remains unknown. In South America, one of the less studied regions for Cryptotis is southern Ecuador and northern Peru. A recent collection of two undetermined shrews from Zamora Chinchipe Province, southern Ecuador, which presented distinct morphology from the known Ecuadorian species for Ecuador, determined here as Cryptotis sp. “Ecuador”, led us to perform a review of Cryptotis from Ecuador and Peru, including a preliminary taxonomic revision of the “thomasi” group. An integrative approach using morphological analyses and molecular phylogenies based on two mitochondrial genes (CYTB and COI) confirmed that the “thomasi” group is monophyletic and that the specimens of Cryptotis sp. “Ecuador” are distinct from its congeners, representing a new species, with a genetic distance of 8 % from its closest congeners. Furthermore, we found that the currently recognized Peruvian species Cryptotis evaristoi , Cryptotis peruviensis , and C. “ montivagus ” ( sensu Zeballos, H., Pino, K., Medina, C.E., Pari, A., Chávez, D., Tinoco, N., and Ceballos, G. (2018). A new species of small-eared shrew of the genus Cryptotis (Mammalia, Eulipotyphla, Soricidae) from the northernmost Peruvian Andes. Zootaxa 4377: 51–73) are reciprocally monophyletic, but showing low genetic distances (0.77–1.83 %) and high morphological similarity. This finding suggests the possibility they might represent variations of C. peruviensis (oldest available name) rather than distinct species.

White-toothed shrews of the genus Crocidura represent the most speciose genus of mammals. Within this genus, Crocidura leucodon comprises four mitochondrial lineages, with the Iranian lineage being the most divergent. In this study, we report the diploid number (2N = 32) and the fundamental numbers of chromosomal arms (FN = 42, FNa = 38) for the Iranian lineage, which is different from those reported for western regions (2N = 28, FN = 56, FNa = 52). The phylogenetic analyses performed on mitochondrial cytochrome b (978 bp) of bicolored shrews confirm the previous studies showing the divergence of the Iranian samples. The Kimura’s two-parameter (K2P) genetic distances between the Iranian clade and the three lineages of western regions, based on the cytb marker, range from 5.8 % to 7.1 %, confirming that the former lineage can be considered as a separate species. The preliminary phylogenetic analysis based on three nuclear markers ( ApoB , BRCA1 , and vWF ) does not contradict the divergence of the Iranian specimens compared to those of western regions. More specimens are needed however for a robust conclusion. Our findings verify the results of the previous studies indicating that the Iranian lineage, previously considered as subspecies C. leucodon persica, should be promoted to the species level.

I review unresolved cases of homonymy affecting extant mammals, where the name of a valid species has previously been used for a different species in the same genus. In 12 cases, I designate a senior homonym as a nomen oblitum to protect the stability of a currently recognized species. Four other cases require either action by the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature or the introduction of a replacement name. I also discuss several cases where a potential homonym exists, but the older name is unavailable or spelled differently.

Rickettsia and Anaplasma are Gram-negative, nonmotile, obligate intracellular bacteria in the order Rickettsia les. While various studies have been conducted on these threatening pathogens in humans and domestic animals, the potential role of small mammals as reservoir in zoonotic transmission is poorly understood in Tanzania. This study investigated the prevalence and identity of Rickettsia and Anaplasma infecting small mammals captured at wildlife-human interfaces in Iringa and Morogoro, Tanzania. A total of 371 blood samples were analyzed using conventional PCR and DNA fragment sequencing, targeting approximately 424 bp of the 16S rRNA gene for Anaplasma and 383 bp of the citrate synthase ( gltA ) gene for Rickettsia . Anaplasma spp. DNA was detected in 9.7 %, and Rickettsia spp. in 6.74 % of the samples. Rattus rattus exhibited the highest prevalence for both Anaplasma (21.43 %) and Rickettsia (28.57 %). Two Anaplasma species ( A. bovis and A. ovis ) and three Rickettsia species ( R. asembonensis , R. felis and R. typhi ) were confirmed through sequence analysis. This study highlights the presence of Anaplasma and Rickettsia DNA in captured rodents, indicating the potential role of rodents in the maintenance and transmission of these pathogens, especially at wildlife–human interfaces, also reports the presence of R. asembonensis in rodents for the first time in Tanzania.

Species-group epithet for the steppe polecat is variously spelled eversmanii or eversmanni . This inconsistency violates one of the fundamental principles of zoological nomenclature that each taxon has a single and unique valid name which presumes also consistent spelling. I demonstrate that the original spelling eversmanii from 1827 is incorrect and was validly emended to eversmanni in 1828. The emended name was accepted by mammalogical community and widely used for over a century. This was disrupted after 1950 which led to the current nomenclatural inconsistency. A valid name for the steppe polecat is Mustela eversmanni Lesson, 1827.

Galea tixiensis Quintana 2001, an extinct caviid species whose taxonomic status was questioned, has been identified at the Salto de Piedra (SPPL) paleontological site in Buenos Aires Province (Argentina). Morphological and morphometric analyses of these SPPL remains, together with contemporary and type locality specimens, support the taxonomic validity of this species. This identification dates the species back to ∼16,300 cal BP and extends its geographic distribution ∼200 km eastward in the Pampasic Domain. Other caviine include the extinct Microcavia cf. M. robusta . Paleoenvironmental correlations suggest that this diverse caviine fauna likely correspond to climatic and ecological shifts during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Species like M. robusta and Galea ortodonta disappeared as grasslands replaced shrub steppes in the region during the Holocene, and Cavia aperea arrived here from the north. Today, C. aperea is the only caviine species inhabiting the core of the Pampasic Domain, Microcavia australis and Galea leucoblephara remain restricted to southern xeric coastal environments and G. tixiensis appears to have become extinct in the 19th century. This study provides valuable insights into faunal shifts within the Pampasic Domain, linking these findings to broader patterns of Late Pleistocene biodiversity and environmental dynamics in South America.