New records of Speothos venaticus Lund, 1842 (Carnivora: Canidae) in the state of Pará, Brazil

The Bush dog (Speothos venaticus, Lund, 1842) is the smallest Brazilian canid. The species lives in groups of two to twelve individuals and is considered the most social of the neotropical canids (Burton et al., 1988). Individuals are capable of swimming and diving while foraging and usually can be found near streams. For resting, bush dogs look for shelter in armadillo burrows and hollow tree trunks.

Over the years, the bush dog population has declined due to habitat loss (Emmons and Feer, 1990; MacDonald, 1996; Beisiegel and Zuercher, 2005; Zuercher et al., 2005; Michalski, 2010). However, Oliveira (2009) refutes the hypothesis that the species is sensitive to habitat disturbance as 43% of total records for the species occurred in areas with high levels of natural habitat fragmentation.

Until 2004, the species was listed as Vulnerable according to the criteria of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (DeMatteo and Loiselle, 2008) and in the Appendice I of CITES (Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), but actually it is in the category “Near Threatened” on a global scale (DeMatteo et al., 2011).

In Brazil, the species is stated as “Vulnerable” according to the official list of threatened species, occurs in different biomes such as Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, Pantanal and the Amazon, where is classified as “Vulnerable” (Jorge et al., 2013).

The new records of bush dog presented in this article were obtained during the wildlife rescue and monitoring operations of the Belo Monte’s Hydroelectric Power Plant Basic Environmental Plan. Data were collected from June 2011 to March 2014 (Table 1), in the region known as “Volta Grande do Xingu”, located in the lower Xingu River region between the cities of Altamira and Vitoria do Xingu, PA (Figure 1).

Table 1
Records of specimens Bush Dogs in state of Pará, Brazil.

Type of Record	Coordinates	Source
1. Capture/ Radio tracking	3° 20' S 51° 55' W	UHE Belo Monte
2. Roadkill	3° 05' S 51° 51' W	UHE Belo Monte
3. Sighting	3° 20' S 51° 55' W	UHE Belo Monte
4. Sighting	3° 18' S 51° 54' W	UHE Belo Monte
5. Sighting	3° 21' S 51° 57' W	UHE Belo Monte
6. Sighting	3° 21' S 51° 55' W	UHE Belo Monte
7. Sighting	3° 22' S 51° 55' W	UHE Belo Monte
8. Roadkill	3° 22' S 51° 55' W	UHE Belo Monte
9. Capture/ Radio tracking	3° 15' S 51° 44' W	UHE Belo Monte
10. Sighting	3° 19' S 52° 04' W	UHE Belo Monte
11. Sighting	3° 15' S 51° 47' W	UHE Belo Monte
12. Unknown	2° 10' S 47° 35' W	Carvalho and Toccheton (1969) apud Oliveira (2009)
13. Sighting	2° 13' S 47° 20' W	Lopes and Ferrari (2000)
14. Records of Museum	6° 10' S 50° 25' W	Zuercher et al. (2004)
15. Unknown*	2° 58' S 47° 48' W	Oliveira (2009)
16. Unknown*	3° 45' S 47° 30' W	Oliveira (2009)
17. Unknown*	2° 40' S 48° 18' W	Oliveira (2009)
18. Personal Communication	5° 39' S 55° 28' W	Oliveira (2009)
19. Personal Communication	4° 41' S 53° 45' W	Oliveira (2009)
20. Records of Museum	1° 26' S 48° 29' W	MPEG 1778, 1780 - Oliveira (2009)
21. Records of Museum	2° 02' S 54° 18' W	MPEG 5614, 5615, 8791, 8793 - Oliveira (2009)
22. Interview	2° 26' S 54° 42' W	Sampaio (2007)
23. Records of Museum	1° 08' S 57° 04' W	Zuercher et al. (2004)
24. Records of Museum	0° 56' S 49° 32' W	**MPEG 26180 - Silva-Junior and Soares (1999)

• ^*
  This author does not describe the type of the record.
• ^**
  MPEG, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém, Brazil.

Figure 1
Bush dog distribution in the state of Pará, Brazil.

Further analysis of habitat quality and connectivity will help not only to better understand the ecology of the species, but also to promote its conservation by habitat protection and restoration in the area.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Norte Energia, Biota Projetos e Consultoria Ambiental for logistical support during field activities and all biologists that contributed in some way towards this study.

• (With 1 figure)

References

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Aug 2015

History

• Received
  02 May 2014
• Accepted
  14 July 2014