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Let’s go hide in the forest! Escape behavior of Chaetophractus vellerosus to Tala forest remnant in Buenos Aires province, Argentina

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Abstract

We analyze the movement decisions made by screaming hairy armadillos (Chaetophractus vellerosus) after release from capture by researchers in an agricultural field with patches of remnant Tala forest (Celtis tala) in the warm and the cold season. The armadillos prefer to hide in Tala forest if they are closer than 70 m to a forest patch, indicating that they perceive the forest as a “familiar site.” The probability that C. vellerosus choose a Tala patch for escape was higher during the warm season than during the cold season, perhaps because the low vegetation height during the warm season allows C. vellerosus to easily detect Tala patches. Habitat fragmentation due to various land uses could represent an increasing threat for the relict population of the screaming hairy armadillo in the pampas region.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Luis G. Pagano, Patrick A. Gado, Tatiana Rios, Fernando C. Galliari, Luis Rossi, and Juan P. Luaces for their invaluable help in the field. Thanks to the farm owners (Landa family) and workers that allowed access to their property. Special thanks to W. J. Loughry for the English review. We also thank the Centro de Información Meteorológica, Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, for the invaluable help with the climatic data (SMN, Exp.185.875). This work was conducted under the permission of the Ministerio de Asuntos Agrarios y OPDS, Buenos Aires.

Funding

Financial support was provided by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Universidad Nacional de Lujan (UNLu), Idea Wild, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de Buenos Aires (CIC), Conservation International, and Agencia de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)-Dirección Regional Patagonia Norte de la Administración de Parques Nacionales (APN), Vicealmirante O’connor 1188, 8400, San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina

    Jorge Alberto Gallo & Laura Fasola

  2. Programa Patagonia, Aves Argentinas-Asociación Ornitológica del Plata, Matheu 1246, C1249AB, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Jorge Alberto Gallo & Laura Fasola

  3. Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y de Vectores (CONICET, UNLP), Bvd. 120 s/n entre 60 y 64, 1900 La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Noralí Pagnutti, María Cecilia Ezquiaga & Agustín Manuel Abba

Authors
  1. Jorge Alberto Gallo
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  2. Noralí Pagnutti
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  3. Laura Fasola
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  4. María Cecilia Ezquiaga
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  5. Agustín Manuel Abba
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Contributions

AMA designed the experiment. All the authors collected the data. JAG and LF designed the model and analyzed the data under AMA’s supervision. JAG wrote the first version of the manuscript. All the authors contributed to the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jorge Alberto Gallo.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Communicated by Thales Renato Ochotorena de Freitas

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Gallo, J.A., Pagnutti, N., Fasola, L. et al. Let’s go hide in the forest! Escape behavior of Chaetophractus vellerosus to Tala forest remnant in Buenos Aires province, Argentina. Mamm Res 67, 407–411 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-022-00621-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-022-00621-x

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