|
|
 61 cats DHJanzen100588.jpg high resolution
|
|
| The ACG dry forest has five species of wild cats - jaguar, mountain lion, ocelot, caucel and jagaroundi. All of them eat Liomys, though the last three mentioned are of a small enough body size such that when there is a Liomys population peak, they probably feed almost exclusively on Liomys. Again as with a pair of owls, a single ocelot could easily eat the entire annual production of Liomys from one of the sample plots - if the cat could catch them all. When density is high, then capture will be easy. As density approaches the level of only 2-10 mice per hectare (think three football fields), it will no longer be profitable to hunt Liomys, though individuals encountered through general foraging will certainly be taken. This particular hapless ocelot (held by Winnie Hallwachs for the sake of photograph) was for sale at a public airport in southern Costa Rica (Palmar Sur) in 1979, a public and commercial event fortunately no longer encountered in Costa Rica. | ||
back to lecture slides
or skip to: