“Currently, 11 felid species are identified in Latin America,” said Pontificia Universidad Javeriana researcher Manuel Ruiz-García and his colleagues. “Eight of them form a monophyletic group named the ocelot lineage.” “This lineage includes the ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), the margay (Leopardus wiedii), the Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita), the Pampas or colocolo cat (Leopardus colocola), the kodkod […]
Tag: Leopardus pardalis
Mountain islands: Restoring a transitional cloud forest in Costa Rica
In 2001, South African-born couple, Genevieve and Ian Giddy traveled to Costa Rica to climb Mount Chirripó, one of Central America’s highest peaks, protected within Chirripó National Park. Coming down from the 3,821-meter (12,536-foot) summit, the couple viewed a stark divide between the protected biodiverse high-altitude cloud forest and the deforested cattle pasture and farms […]
The Amazon’s short-eared dog was thought to be a scavenger. Now there’s video
In 2016, conservation biologist Holly O’Donnell was striding through the Amazon rainforest in southwestern Peru, recording every mammal she saw or heard while performing a line transect survey for the Peruvian NGO Fauna Forever. A few minutes into her walk, she smelled something fetid. Following the scent several meters off the trail, she found the […]
At-risk Cerrado mammals need fully-protected parks to survive: Researchers
Each April for six consecutive years, Guilherme Braga Ferreira and three other researchers set out on a half-year journey, methodically installing remote camera traps across 386 square miles of the Brazilian Cerrado savanna. Their goal: to photograph maned wolves, giant anteaters, pumas, tapirs and other Neotropical mammals, residents of the world’s most biodiverse grasslands. The […]
Panthera: At least 500 jaguars lost their lives or habitat in Amazon fires
The fires ravaging the Amazon forest in Brazil and Bolivia this year have burned key habitats of at least 500 adult, resident jaguars as of Sept. 17, rendering them dead or homeless, say experts at Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization. “The number of homeless or dead jaguars has undoubtedly increased since Panthera’s estimate […]
Camera trap study reveals Amazon ocelot’s survival strategies
Ocelots living the Amazon basin prefer dense forest and avoid roads and human settlements, according to the largest ever camera trap study of this illusive wildcat, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution earlier this year. The ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) is a medium-sized spotted cat found across the southwestern United States, central and South America. […]
Peru issues its first sentence against species traffickers, setting a precedent
On January 6, two men happened to be near San José church in the Lima district of Jesús María, when they were stopped by various agents from the Office Against Illegal Logging and Protection of Natural Resources (Dirección Contra la Tala Ilegal y Protección de los Recursos Naturales, or DIRCTIPRN – PNP), in coordination with […]
A road blocking the way
Roads are our main transport routes and important drivers of socioeconomic development. However, the impacts of roads are one of the main factors responsible for the current biodiversity crisis. Roads impact individual organisms, populations, species, ecosystems and landscapes in various ways. their effects can be direct or indirect, short-term or permanent and apply to partially […]