Body mass variation in the Geoffroy's cat (Oncifelis geoffroyi)
We report new data on the intersexual and geographical variation in body mass of the Geoffroy’s cat(Oncifelis geoffroyid’Orbigny and Gervais 1844), a little known small cat from South America, and combinethem with the existing information to compare alternative hypotheses for variation in body mass....
| Autores: | , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2006 |
| País: | Argentina |
| Institución: | Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas |
| Repositorio: | CONICET Digital (CONICET) |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/86161 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/11336/86161 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | CARNIVORES FELIDS ONCIFELIS GEOFFROYI SOUTH AMERICA BODY MASS https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.6 https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1 |
| Sumario: | We report new data on the intersexual and geographical variation in body mass of the Geoffroy’s cat(Oncifelis geoffroyid’Orbigny and Gervais 1844), a little known small cat from South America, and combinethem with the existing information to compare alternative hypotheses for variation in body mass. Most dataon the body mass of O. geoffroyihave been obtained from previous research on this felid in four study areasof southern Brazil and central and southern Argentina. These data were added to those reported for other threeadditional locations. Our results set the body mass of O. geoffroyito 4.26 ±1.03 kg (mean ±SD, n = 56). Wealso show that males generally are heavier than females throughout most of this species’ distributional range.Body mass dimorphism is 1.34 on average, but ranges from 1.19 and 1.21 in Uruguay and southern Chile,respectively, to 1.76 in the northern Pampas of Argentina. When data from the best sampled areas areconsidered (Torres del Paine, Lihué Calel, southern Pampas, Campos del Tuyú and southern Brazil), onlymale body mass varies with geographic location. More intriguingly, no correlation was found between bodymass and latitude. Our results suggest a smaller mean weight of O. geoffroyirelative to what was previouslypublished, but also suggest a wider variation. Our analysis do not support Bergmann’s rule, according towhich the largest individuals would occur in the southernmost regions of this cat’s geographic distribution,while they seem supportive of a sexually-selected process affecting sexual size dimorphism in the Geoffroy’scat. |
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