Black oriental pantanal cat discovered in Brazil. Photo Internet Vanguard
An “eastern pantanal cat” with completely black fur, an atypical color for this endemic species of the Pampas and threatened with extinction both in Brazil and in Argentina and Uruguay, was described by Brazilian scientists after being photographed in July 2021.
The record of the rare specimen and the genetic mutation that altered the color of its fur was described in an article published this Friday in the scientific journal “Biota Neotropica” by a team of researchers led by the Brazilian zoologist Fábio Dias Mazim.
The animal photographed by special cameras is of the species known as “Muñoa’s pajonal cat”, “Uruguayan pampas cat”, “eastern pantanal cat” or “palheiro-pampeano cat” (Leopardus munoai), which is from the genus of the small cats Leopardus and exclusive to the Pampas.
Despite the fact that this species of feline weighing up to 4 kilos and 70 centimeters long is characterized by its long fur that is between brown-ocher and gray-yellowish in color, with transverse dark stripes on the legs and tail, the specimen described it is totally black.
Due to this characteristic, attributed to excess melanin in the skin due to a genetic mutation caused by the weakening of its species, it is an unpublished specimen that was registered for the first and only time on July 8, 2021 in a military training camp. in Sao Borja, a municipality in the extreme south of Brazil.
This is an atypical characteristic that “maybe associated with inbreeding or genetic weakening of a population with less than a hundred individuals remaining on the planet, or perhaps the result of crossbreeding between relatives,” says Mazim.
Specimens of the same species but with their normal fur were also photographed by the same team of researchers in both May 2021 and June this year.
Mazim, a zoologist specializing in wild mammals from the NGO Instituto Pró-Carnívoros, leads a team made up of biologists and veterinarians from various institutions, including the Brazilian Institute of the Environment (Ibama) and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul ( UFRGS).
The team uses camera traps, which take photos automatically activated by movement or temperature sensors, to try to capture cats in different regions of Rio Grande do Sul, a Brazilian state bordering Argentina and Uruguay.
The cameras were installed in fields with native vegetation of the Pampas that have been intact for at least 40 years, something difficult in a biome with high rates of deforestation due to the advance of agriculture.
Among the animals investigated, the “oriental pantanal cat” stands out, one of the most endangered cats in the world and of which it is estimated that there are about 100 specimens left in the extreme south of Brazil, in Uruguay and in a small portion of the extreme eastern Argentina.
There are only eleven photographic records of this species in its entire habitat area, seven in Brazil and four in Argentina. EFE