Patterns of mineral lick visitation by Linnaeus's two-toed sloth Choloepus didactylus (Pilosa, Megalonychidae) in eastern Ecuador

Diego Mosquera; Gabriela Vinueza-Hidalgo; John G. Blake

doi:10.31687/saremNMS.19.0.07

Autores

Diego Mosquera Estación de Biodiversidad Tiputini, Colegio de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador.
Gabriela Vinueza-Hidalgo Estación de Biodiversidad Tiputini, Colegio de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador.
John G. Blake Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31687/saremNMS.19.0.07

Resumo

Geophagy involves the consumption of soil to supplement diets and to facilitate digestive processes. We used camera traps to document the use of a salt lick by Linnaeus's two-toed sloth Choloepus didactylus (Linnaeus, 1758) from December 2014 to November 2015 in a lowland Ecuadorian forest. We obtained 201 videos of sloths and analyzed if rain or lunar-phase influenced these visits. Visits were positively correlated with monthly rainfall and negatively correlated with lunar illumination, but correlations were not significant. We consider three hypotheses for visiting licks: (a) to supplement their diet, (b) to help digestion, and (c) to obtain water.

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