Straight from the Güiñas mouth: Diet of a Neotropical carnivore documented through camera traps

Abstract

Predators are known to carry prey in their mouth for many purposes, including providing for dependent young or caching. Studying predator diet through the use of remote camera traps has seldom been explored, aside from natural history observations. We provide photographic evidence of prey carrying behavior of the elusive güiñas (Leopardus guigna) in two study sites in a temperate rainforest of Chilean Patagonia. We recorded 35 photographs and 12 events of güiñas carrying prey using camera traps across 57 sites between 2019 and 2022. All photographs show a rodent as prey except in one, where based on morphology, we conclude that it is a colocolo opossum, locally known as ‘Monito del Monte’ (Dromiciops gliroides). All events happened between 2000 and 0800 h, consistent with previous research documenting diel patterns of güiñas in Chile. We argue that camera traps may offer an alternative to help us understand the feeding ecology and diet, especially when collecting scat becomes difficult (e.g., rugged terrain, sites with heavy rainfall). This work discusses the use of camera traps to study predation events and predator diets. The observations here broaden our understanding of güiña predator-prey interactions and can help generate new ways to study diet.