Keywords
Depredation
Diet
Fox
Crab-eating fox
Canidae
Nile tilapia
Santa Rosa de Cabal
Risaralda
Colombia
Photo-trapping
Cerdocyon thous
How to Cite
Accepted 2025-04-12
Published 2025-05-19
Abstract
The crab-eating fox (Cerdocyon thous, Linnaeus, 1766) is a canid that lives in pairs or small groups and is widely distributed in the neotropical region, even withstanding fragmentation and human presence. This paper presents the first record of the crab-eating fox, C. thous, preying on individuals of Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus, 1758), cultivated in a rural area of the municipality of Santa Rosa de Cabal, Colombia. Sampling was carried out at the Fish Farming Station of the campus of the Corporación Universitaria Santa Rosa de Cabal (UNISARC). Photo-trapping was initiated from February 23 to March 1st, 2024, using 2 camera traps which were active 24 hours a day, thus fulfilling 14 traps-night. There were 19 records of observation of two individuals of C. thous around one of the ponds, and 10 evident fishing events were specifically recorded. It is considered an opportunistic species, where they learn behaviors easily in order to obtain a benefit, also they adopt different methods to obtain their, therefore, it is possible that the fishing method was learned previously and reinforced by having a high availability of resources in the area where it was documented.
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