Monday, September 20, 2010

Mammals

We have seen a very different mammal transect to previous phases is 103. The very low tides we have seen this phase bringing the water table down and also the maintenance work conducted on the trail by the National Park Rangers have meant changes – mainly, the trail has been a lot dryer than it used to be.
This has not stopped our intrepid teams venturing the 2 ½ miles down to the transect every Tuesday morning though. As a result we have had some interesting new species on the trail and an adapting protocol to cope with the changes.

The top species on the transect this phase was for the first time the Red-brocket Deer (Mazama americana). This beat the Jaguar (Panthera onca) into second place by 28 records to 22. Mantled Howler Monkeys (Alouatta palliata), White-lipped Peccary (Tayassu pecari) and Central American Spider Monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) rounded out the top five.
As ever we have found that the dominant portion of our records has been made in a concentrated area. This time round it was between 225m and 425m of the transect. As you would expect the vast majority of the species were found in this area too. No records were made between 700m –850m, possibly due to the difference in the terrain here.
That brings to a close the mammal transects for this phase, however it is worth noting the other species seen in the Incidentals project. Including Kinkajou (Potus flavus), Paca (Agouti paca), Tayra (Eira Barbara) and Bottle-nosed Dolphins (Tursiops truncates) all near base.


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