Bush Dogs in Central America: Recent Range Expansion, Cryptic Distribution, or Both?

Bush dogs (Speothos venaticus) are a small, wide-ranging neotropical pack-hunting canid whose ecology is relatively poorly known. Here, we document new, repeated observations of bush dog groups in east-central (Barbilla National Park) and south-eastern (La Amistad International Park) Costa Rica that...

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Autores Principales: Sáenz-Bolaños, Carolina, Fuller, Todd, Mooring, Michael S., Porras, Junior, Sievert, Paul R., Carrillo, Eduardo, Montalvo, Victor H.
Formato: Artículo
Idioma: Inglés
Publicado: SAGE Publications Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea: http://hdl.handle.net/11056/22107
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1940082919849758
Sumario: Bush dogs (Speothos venaticus) are a small, wide-ranging neotropical pack-hunting canid whose ecology is relatively poorly known. Here, we document new, repeated observations of bush dog groups in east-central (Barbilla National Park) and south-eastern (La Amistad International Park) Costa Rica that suggest either that their recent or historic range has been underestimated, or that their potential range in Central America may have recently expanded and could now include not only borderlands with Panama but perhaps a substantial portion of the Talamanca Mountains up to 120 km to the northnorthwest and at elevations up to 2,119 m. In light of their inherently low density, documenting the current and future distribution of bush dogs in Central America will be challenging