Throat Patch Variation in Tayra (Eira barbara) and the Potential for Individual Identification in the Field

Álvaro Villafañe-Trujillo,Carlos López-González,Joseph Kolowski

doi:10.3390/d10010007

Álvaro Villafañe-Trujillo, Carlos López-González + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/d10010007

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Abstract

The importance of identifying individuals of a population has been extensively documented in several species of carnivores, including some species of mustelids. This information is used in many kinds of ecological studies including density estimation, behavioral ecology and analyses of animal movement patterns. The objective of the present study was to determine if individual variation in the throat patches of Tayra (Eira barbara) permits individual identification. We examined 275 specimens from museum collections to determine the morphological variation of the throat patch in Eira barbara specimens collected throughout its distribution. We found differences in the shape and size of the throat patches significant enough to allow discrimination of individuals that display a throat patch (88.0% of 252 complete specimens). The proposed identification criterion was applied to photographic records obtained from a wild population using camera traps in the Peruvian Amazon. From nineteen images (54.0% of all images) in which the throat patch was visible, nine different individuals were identified and two of these were recaptured on multiple occasions.

Highlights

Individual identification of free-living animals allows one to differentiate among individuals of a species and estimate the size of its population
Most populations of E. barbara have distinct throat patch (Table 1), similar to that reported for other mustelids, where the feature has a distinct throat patch (Table 1), similar to that reported for other mustelids, where the feature has been been successfully used for individual identification [11,12,13]
A total of 275 museum specimens of Eira barbara were available for examination; 15 specimens belonged to six zoological collections of Mexico, 103 records belonged to the Division of Mammals of the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution, and 157 specimens were from the zoological collection of the American Museum of Natural History of the United States (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Individual identification of free-living animals allows one to differentiate among individuals of a species and estimate the size of its population. The proportion of individuals marked in the second sample permits the estimation of the total population size [2]. This basic model form was expanded to allow testing of various hypotheses about the factors influencing capture probability [3] and more recently to allow the incorporation of spatial information [4] yet the need for “capture” remains in all cases. Non-invasive approaches exist for “capture” and “marking” of animals, and photo-identification, often through the use of motion/heat activated trail cameras, has been widely used in a capture-mark-recapture context to estimate population sizes (e.g., Testé and Denis [6]; Burton et al [7])

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