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Margay - Leopardus weidi
Topic Started: Jan 7 2012, 08:35 PM (4,451 Views)
Taipan
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Margay - Leopardus weidi

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Physical Features

Weight - around 3.5 kg 7 pounds on average

Coat - patterned with black-ringed rosettes and elongate blotches on a tawny background. Its fur is thick and plush.

Tail - The margay’s tail is proportionately quite long (although not as long as the Andean mountain cat), averaging 70% of head-body length (TL=36.4 cm; n=6: Redford and Eisenberg 1992)

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Distribution & habitat

Distribution - The Amazon Basin is its stronghold. It is reported to be rare in north-western Argentina (Mares et al. 1981, A. Canedi in litt. 1993) and Uruguay (A. Ximénez in litt. 1990). A sub-adult male in successional forest in Belize’s Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary -- where margays appear to be less common than in primary forest -- had a home range of 11 km2 (Konecny 1989). An adult radio-collared male in Brazil’s Iguaçu National Park monitored over 18 months by P. Crawshaw (pers. comm. 1993) maintained a home range of 16 km2.

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Habitat - The margay is more strongly associated with forest habitat, both evergreen and deciduous (Bisbal 1989), than any other tropical American cat. Although it formerly occurred as far north as Texas, it was restricted to riverine forest (L. Emmons in litt. 1993). It hunts on the boundaries of such gallery forests and may thus be found some distance from forest cover in savanna habitats.

Diet

Based on analysis of 27 scats, the most common item in the diet was a small arboreal mammal, the big-eared climbing rat.
Squirrels, opossums, arthropods, small birds and fruit were also taken (Konecny 1989). Other reported arboreal prey includes prehensile-tailed porcupines, marmosets, capuchin monkeys, and three-toed sloths (Goldman 1920, Beebe 1925). "

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Arboreal Abilities

"In motion, however, the margay displays exceptional climbing abilities. It has the ability to rotate its hind foot through 180 (Leyhausen 1963). Thus equipped, it can run straight down trees head-first like a squirrel, and may hang from a branch by one hind foot. In the early 1800s, Maximilian Prince zu Wied observed the margay climbing about on dangling lianas in the forest (Weigel 1975). Petersen (1977a) describes the acrobatics of captive margays on a rope strung horizontally in their enclosure. The cats would jump from a distance of 2 m with front legs and claws extended, hit the rope at their belly region, somersault over to hang by the hind feet, and drop back to the ground."

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Taipan
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Wild Cat Mimics Monkey Sounds to Capture Prey

By LiveScience Staff
posted: 08 July 2010 04:02 pm ET

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Certain wild cats in the Amazon, known as margays, mimics the calls of their prey, tamarin monkeys to fool the primates.

One wild cat species goes beyond physical camouflage to capture its prey — it disguises its voice, mimicking the calls of its victims, a new study finds.

Margays, wild cats native to the Amazon, have been observed imitating the calls of squirrel-sized monkeys known as pied tamarins. This is the first recorded instance of a wild cat species in the Americas copying the calls of its prey, the researchers say.

The observations confirmed what until now had been only anecdotal reports from Amazonian inhabitants of wild cat species — including jaguars and pumas — actually mimicking primates, rodents and other species in order to draw them within striking range.

"Cats are known for their physical agility, but this vocal manipulation of prey species indicates a psychological cunning which merits further study," said study researcher Fabio Rohe, of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

The study was carried out in the Amazonian forests of the Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke in Brazil.

Researchers first recorded the incident in 2005 when a group of eight pied tamarins were feeding in a ficus tree. They then observed a margay emitting calls similar to those made by tamarin babies. This attracted the attention of a tamarin "sentinel," which climbed down from the tree to investigate the sounds coming from a tangle of vines.

While the sentinel monkey started vocalizing to warn the rest of the group of the strange calls, the monkeys were clearly confounded by these familiar vocalizations, choosing to investigate rather than flee. Four other tamarins climbed down to assess the nature of the calls. At that moment, a margay emerged from the foliage walking down the trunk of a tree like a squirrel, jumping down and then moving towards the monkeys. Realizing the ruse, the sentinel screamed an alarm and sent the other tamarins fleeing.

While this specific instance of mimicry was unsuccessful, the researchers were amazed at the ingenuity of the hunting strategy.

"This observation further proves the reliability of information obtained from Amazonian inhabitants," said Avecita Chicchón, director of the WCS's Latin America Program. "This means that accounts of jaguars and pumas using the same vocal mimicry to attract prey — but not yet recorded by scientists — also deserve investigation."

The results appear in the June issue of the journal Neotropical Primates.

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http://www.livescience.com/animals/wild-cat-mimics-calls-prey-100708.html

Edited by Taipan, May 27 2012, 03:37 PM.
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Ceratodromeus
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[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Predation on a green ameiva (Ameiva ameiva)-

" On 18 January 2006, during the afternoon, one of us
(RBN), witnessed the predation of an adult A. ameiva by a Margay
Cat, Leopardus wiedii (Fig. 1), in Lagoa Santa farm (17.649167°S,
40.352778°W), municipality of Nanuque, state of Minas Gerais,
Brazil. This site contains fragments of Atlantic Rainforest surrounded
by Eucalyptus plantations.
The Margay is widely distributed from northern Mexico
through Central and South America south to NE Argentina,
southern Brazil, and Uruguay (Eizirik et al. 1998. J. Mol. Evol.
47:613–624). Margays prey mainly on small mammals and birds,
but occasionally also on frogs, lizards, and snakes (Wang 2002.
Stud. Neotrop. Fauna Environ. 37:207–212; Rocha-Mendes et al.
2010. Biota Neotrop. 10[4]:21–30; Bianchi et al. 2011. Zoologia
28:427–435; Cinta-Magallón et al. 2012. Cuad. Invest. UNED
4:33–40). Regarding predation on squamate reptiles, those
studies (which were mostly based on analyses of scats) did not
give precise identification of the prey, with only one (CintaMagallón
et al., op. cit.) providing identification to genera
and (tentatively) to species. The present note documents the
first record of predation on A. ameiva by L. wiedii.
Although
Margays are widely regarded as primarily arboreal felids, there
is increasing evidence (including the present report) that they
may forage on the ground and prey on terrestrial vertebrates.


From the herpetological review(2015).
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