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Vol. 49 No. 4, 2010
Morphometrics of the Tracks of Puma concolor : Is It Possible to
Differentiate the Sexes Using Measurements from Captive Animals?
Karla
P. García1,*, Juan Carlos Ortiz1, Marcela Vidal2,
and Jaime R. Rau3
1Departamento
de Zoología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Oceanográficas,
Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile
2Laboratorio de Genómica y Biodiversidad, Departamento
de Ciencias Básicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad del Bio-Bío,
Casilla 447, Chillán, Chile
3Laboratorio de Ecología, Departamento de Ciencias
Básicas, Programa de Educación e Investigación Biológica y Ambiental
(Programa IBAM), Universidad de Los Lagos, Casilla 933, Osorno, Chile
Karla P.
García, Juan Carlos Ortiz, Marcela Vidal, and Jaime R. Rau (2010)
Studies of felines have attempted to identify individuals by their
tracks, since this ability would allow obtaining data such as the
presence/absence and abundance of these species, which are difficult to
obtain because of their secretive habits. Distinguishing between
the sexes is important, because it permits estimation of the sex ratio
and the relation of this to population dynamics; however, few studies
have attempted to determine the sex of Puma concolor using tracks.
This study uses linear, angular, area, and geometric morphometrics to
correctly classify individuals by sex using tracks from captive
animals. The results indicated that males had greater mean values
for many variables, except for the area of internal toe, the area of
exterior toe, the length of 3rd toe and the length of the 2nd
toe. In the geometric analysis, the shape of male tracks was
narrower in the middle than that of females. Although no other
methods are available that allow identification of individuals by their
tracks, this study demonstrates that the use of different tools may
provide favorable results. Finally, it will be necessary to
increase the sample size of pumas in the wild, which will allow the
inference of the population dynamics of this species in Chile and
elsewhere.
Key words: Discriminant analysis, Puma, Shape morphometrics, Tracks,
Zoos.
*Correspondence: E-mail:kgarcia@udec.cl
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