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... The purpose of the present study was to determine whether and how the fruit-foraging behaviors of two frugivorous carnivorans, the raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) and Japanese badger (Meles anakuma), are influenced by the presence of humans. In the first investigation, we contrasted the frequency and duration of foraging visits to fruit-bearing trees in an urban forest and a mountain forest ...
Cuon alpinus; Felis chaus; Herpestidae; Prionailurus bengalensis; Scandentia; biodiversity; camera trapping; forests; national parks; Bangladesh
Abstract:
... Bangladesh holds 191 km² semi-evergreen northeastern (NE) forests where systematic camera-trapping has never been carried out. An effort of 587 trap nights in Satchari National Park, a NE forest, revealed ten carnivores, two ungulates, two primates, two rodents, and one treeshrew (12 threatened in Bangladesh; of which three globally threatened; dhole and northern treeshrew were new discoveries). P ...
... Self-sustained populations of captive red panda were challenged by low reproductive success rate. Defining the different types of testicular cell and increasing the knowledge of male fertility was critical for the improvement of reproductive efficiency in red panda captive populations. Here, we firstly report the histological structure in red panda testes at various ages. Besides, our data also sh ...
Castanopsis cuspidata; Japan; Sus scrofa; acorns; bamboos; body condition; crop damage; food composition; mammals; masting; stomach; wild boars
Abstract:
... We analyzed the stomach contents of wild boars (Sus scrofa) inhabiting evergreen forests in western Japan and found that they were dependent on the masting of acorns of Castanopsis cuspidata. The increased availability of C. cuspidata acorns positively affected their consumption by wild boars. In the good mast years, wild boars consumed C. cuspidata acorns from November to June of the following ye ...
Japan; Tursiops aduncus; Tursiops truncatus; body length; bycatch; dolphins; females; haplotypes; males; microsatellite repeats; mitochondrial DNA
Abstract:
... Hybrid cetaceans occur in both captive and natural environments. This study is the first to describe the external morphological and genetic characterizations of natural intrageneric hybridization between the common bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, and the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, T. aduncus, in Japanese waters. In November 2019, a stray dolphin was seen in Moriura Bay, Wakayama, Jap ...
... A female pantropical spotted dolphin (Stenella attenuata) successfully mated with a mature male in captivity on April 13, 2017. This mating event was followed by an evaluation of the plasma progesterone concentration, appetite, and rectum temperature of the dolphin during pregnancy. We recorded the progesterone profiles during pregnancy, the gestation period, and the parturition events. The proges ...
... The taxonomy and phylogeny of the subgenus Mus, the Eurasian lineage of the genus Mus, remain unresolved, even for the house mouse (Mus musculus). While the subgenus is diverse in Asia, few studies cover both its morphology and molecular phylogeny. We re-examined 70 specimens identified as M. cervicolor that were collected from central Nepal in 1968 and 1975 and are currently deposited in the Hokk ...
Bayesian theory; mitochondria; mitochondrial genome; moles; phylogeny; China
Abstract:
... The Hainan mole Mogera hainana was described as a full species by Thomas (1910), but its taxonomic status of this animal has been debated since then and remains controversial. In this study, we determined the mitochondrial genome of M. hainana. We also estimated its phylogenetic relationships using mitochondrial Cytb and nuclear Rag1 genes and conducted molecular species delimitation analyses usin ...
agricultural land; crop damage; electric fences; humans; models; questionnaires; surveys
Abstract:
... For macaque management, it is recommended that residents use countermeasures, such as psychological attacks using fireworks and other to drive macaques away from farmland. However, these require settlement-wide cooperation and continuous implementation. I surveyed residents within settlements and aimed to clarify the conditions under which countermeasures were successful. I hypothesized that the e ...
Martes; body size; body weight; excreta; mammals; seasonal variation; summer; winter
Abstract:
... The Japanese marten (Martes melampus) invades houses through holes and causes excrement problems. These holes should be covered to prevent the marten's intrusion into houses. However, there is no information about what size of hole they can squeeze through. Therefore, we investigated the sizes of the holes that they could pass through using three reared individuals in summer and winter. We put a b ...
... Specimen number OMNH-QV 4815, including the skull, mandibles, fused basihyal and thyrohyal, vertebrae, ribs, and scapula from the Namba Formation (Holocene), in Osaka City, Japan is identified as Balaenoptera physalus by having the thick anteriorly projected and laterally narrower basihyal and thyrohyal complex, and slender mandibles with laterally tilted coronoid processes. OMNH-QV 4815 is the se ...
... Cryopreservation of somatic tissues and cells can be applied to biodiversity conservation. Although vitrification is widely used for tissue cryopreservation, it is challenging to obtain viable cells in facilities that lack adequate experimental tools, such as zoos. In this study, we established a simple tissue cryopreservation method for obtaining viable cells. Using mouse tissues of the ears and ...
... Pipistrelles of the genus Hypsugo are among the rarest bats in Japan, known from a handful of records. In June 2018, a sequence of echolocation calls apparently by a bat of this genus was recorded by an automatic ultrasound recorder on the island of Okinawa. The calls closely resemble H. pulveratus, a Chinese species never before recorded in Japan, and H. alaschanicus, a very rare species in Japan ...
... In the Japanese field mice, Apodemus argenteus and A. speciosus, loss of a tail part has often been observed under natural conditions. Such loss is considered a way of avoiding damage during physical accidents and attacks. Here, we studied the types of losses, types of caudal breakages, and breakage positions along the tail. The losses mainly consisted of intervertebral breakage (inter-VB) and int ...
Japan; Loliginidae; Ommastrephidae; Stenella coeruleoalba; chi-square distribution; diet; females; males; muscles; prey species; stomach; East China Sea
Abstract:
... Striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) mass-stranded on 26 April 2013 at Minamisatsuma, Kagoshima Prefecture, in southern Japan (East China Sea). The diet of the mass-stranded striped dolphins was investigated to reveal their foraging pattern through analyses of the stomach contents and stable isotopes in muscle. Of 26 stomachs sampled, 25 contained hard parts of prey animals; no fleshy remains ...
... It's not always possible to obtain samples from dead male pinnipeds that are fresh enough to determine the histological characteristics of spermatogenesis and their stage of sexual maturity. We propose that the morphometrics of genital organs of northern fur seals, Callorhinus ursinus, can be used as a new indicator of sexual maturity. We analyzed data from collected records of male fur seals arou ...
... Estimating population density and monitoring demographic trends of large carnivores are hard to be done, as they, in general, occur at very low population densities over large ranges and are often elusive. We tested the utility of artificially scented wooden rubbing posts as a tool for DNA hair snagging of brown bears (Ursus arctos), which can be used for noninvasive population monitoring. To dete ...
... Nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial D-loop region were examined in three wild rodents (Apodemus argenteus, Apodemus speciosus, and Myodes smithii) on the northern slope of Mt. Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan, to elucidate the past evolutionary and present anthropogenic processes shaping their genetic diversity. Nucleotide diversity, median-joining network, and mismatch distribution analy ...
... Fauna of the Kuril Islands is understood insufficiently; in particular, the distribution and taxonomic relationships of bats in this territory are definitely understudied. Long-eared bats (Plecotus spp.) were first captured on the island of Urup during an expedition organized by the Russian Geographical Society in 2019. This capture became the first record of an indigenous land mammal on this isla ...
... Like European badgers, Japanese badgers are known to use earthworms as a staple food. However, while European badgers mainly eat the family Lumbricidae, Japanese badgers are thought to primarily take the family Megascolecidae in forest areas. In this study, we investigated the feeding habits and habitat utilization of Japanese badgers inhabiting a mountainous dairy farm, where a previously less-in ...