Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2021 | 13(14): 20284–20287
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6685.13.14.20284-20287
#6685 | Received 08 September 2020 | Final
received 18 June 2021 | Finally accepted 26 October 2021
Latrine site and its use pattern
by Large Indian Civet Viverra zibetha Linnaeus, 1758: record from camera trap
Bhuwan Singh Bist
1, Prashant Ghimire 2, Basant Sharma 3, Chiranjeevi Khanal 4 &
Anoj Subedi 5
1 The School of Forestry and
Natural Resource Management, Institute of Forestry(IOF), Tribhuvan
University(TU), Kathmandu, Nepal.
3,4 Faculty of Science, Health and
Technology, Nepal Open University, Lalitpur, Nepal.
1,2,3,5 Institute of Forestry, Pokhara Campus,
Tribhuvan University, Pokhara 33700, Nepal.
1 bhuwanbistaiof@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 prashantghimire66@gmail.com, 3 b.s.sharma237@gmail.com,
4 chirankhanal1@gmail.com, 5 anojsubedi99@gmail.com
Editor: Honnavalli N. Kumara, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural
History, Coimbatore, India. Date of
publication: 26 December 2021 (online & print)
Citation: Bist, B.S., P. Ghimire, B.
Sharma, C. Khanal & A. Subedi
(2021). Latrine site and
its use pattern by Large Indian Civet Viverra
zibetha Linnaeus, 1758: record from camera trap. Journal of Threatened Taxa 13(14): 20284–20287. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6685.13.14.20284-20287
Copyright: © Bist et al. 2021. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and
distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the
author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: This
research received no specific grant from any funding agency, or commercial or
not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: Our team thanks Kritagaya Gyawali, Milan Budha, Milan Aryal, Gaurav Raaz Baral, Anup Raaz Adhikari, and Navin
Pandey for assisting in the field; Yajna Prasad Timilsina,
Angelika Appeal, and Russel Gray for their help in
different stages; and all anonymous reviewers for comments on the drafts.
Abstract: Latrine sites are the places used
for urination and defecation, which mostly act as a signaling agent for
multiple purposes like territorial marking, confrontation with extruders or
potential predators, delivering different inter and intra-communication messages.
To understand latrine site visit pattern, a single camera trap was deployed for
91 trap nights at the latrine site of Large Indian Civet during the months of
December 2016 and February & March 2017. Latrine site was found under the
tree with abundant crown cover and bushes. At least two individuals were found
to be using a single latrine site in an irregular manner between 1800 h and
0600 h with higher activity between 1800 h and 2300 h. Our results indicated an
irregular latrine site visit pattern, hence similar studies with a robust
research design in larger areas are required to understand specific latrine use
patterns.
Keywords: Activity pattern, behavior,
camera trap, clock chart, seasonal, scent marking, territorial marking,
territory, urination.
The repeated use of specific
latrine sites has been described for several mammals, including omnivores,
ungulates, and primates (Dröscher & Kappeler 2014). Such sites vary in location
(arboreal, terrestrial, or subterranean), in volume of faeces,
spatial distribution, and behaviours associated with
defecation and seem to vary in the functions they serve (Irwin et al. 2004).
Understanding the use of latrine sites is one of the most effective and
fundamental tools that provides future directions and insights into the
ecological and behavioural relationships among
conspecifics. Time stamped camera trap data have been very useful for understanding
the presence, ecology and behaviour of the species (Ridout & Linkie 2009; Rowcliffe et al. 2014).
The Large Indian Civet Viverra zibetha is
a widespread species and has been recorded up to 2,420 m in Nepal (Appel et
al. 2013), and up to 3,080 m in India (Khatiwara & Srivastava
2014). Its presence was documented in the riverine and Sal Shorea robusta
forests, near human settlements (Ghimirey &
Acharya 2014), grasslands and in thick bushes (Jnawali
et al. 2011) as well as in the primary, secondary, degraded forest, scrubland
and plantations areas (Duckworth 1997; Azlan 2003;
Jennings & Veron 2011; Choudhury 2013; Chutipong et al. 2014). Due to its wide distribution
across a variety of habitats, it is listed as Least Concern (LC) in IUCN Red
List (Timmins et al. 2016). It is a ground dwelling (Lekagul
& McNeely 1977; Duckworth 1997) solitary, nocturnal animal; with occasional
records at daytime (Than et al. 2008; Gray et al. 2014). In this
note, we documented its latrine site and its use pattern in the premises of the
Institute of Forestry, Pokhara, using camera trap records.
Study area
The Institute of Forestry (IOF),
Pokhara campus is situated in Pokhara, Kaski
district, Gandaki province of Nepal. We identified the latrine site of the
Large Indian Civet during mammalian profile survey within Banpale
forest, a legal asset of IOF, which mainly includes the natural Schima-Castanopsis forest; having
species of Dalbergia, Albezia,
Michelia, and Alnus.
The Seti river is a perennial that flows within a
close vicinity of the forest. The recorded latrine site was very close to the Marshyangdi hostel. Agricultural crops, vegetables, and
banana gardens were found around the study site.
Material and methods
A single piece of Bushnell camera
trap was deployed without any lure for 91 days from 1–30 December 2016 and 01
February to 30 March 2017. The camera trap, having active motion inbuilt
function with non-motion sensor, was deployed at the base of a D. sissoo tree at a height of 25–30cm above the ground in
such a way that the entire latrine site was visible. It was set to both photo
and video mode option so as to record two photos per second followed by a video
of 10 seconds from 1800–0600 h for each trap night.
Data analysis
Both photo and video from the camera
trap were imported, collated, and cleaned for further analysis. Only those
photos and videos with the evidence of the record of a Large Indian Civet in
the latrine site were considered for the interpretation. The obtained data were
analyzed in R software using the package ggplot2, dplyr,
lubridate (R core team 2019) to create the clock
chart.
Results
The geographic location of the
latrine site was at an elevation of 808 m. Monitoring of the latrine site for
three months yielded a total of 215 videos and 1,017 camera trap images during
the effort of 91 camera trap nights.
The latrine site was under the
bush coverage of a D. sissoo tree, with 80%
canopy intertwined with bushes and climbers, making the site enclosed with
openings at two ends. The defecating site was excavated 5-cm deep at the center
of the pit (a cavity or hole in the ground usually made by digging). The
individuals deposited the feces along with spraying of urine in the latrine
site, and rubbing their anus in soil right after defecation. Two Large Indian
Civets were seen together in the recorded video of March 2017 in the latrine
site, however, their sexes could not be distinguished.
Large Indian Civets visited the
latrine site from 1800–0500 h (Figure 1). It was active for most of the night
time with the highest record during the hour between (2100–2200 h) followed by
(1800–1900 h), with the lowest at the start of the day (0500–0600 h). It
visited the site for eight days in December, seven days in February and six
days in March. After the first eight days of frequent visits, the animal was
not observed for the next 22 days in December.
Of the total video duration
(1,423 seconds), the presence of the Large Indian Civet was recorded for 1,046
seconds, the major activity during this was sniffing (782 seconds, 78%) and
defecating & urinating (224 seconds, 22%). It initially sniffed the site,
afterwards urinated and defecated.
Discussion
The recorded latrine site was
outside the forest area and in close proximity to the settlement area. A tree
surrounded by tall bushes with a small outlet in both sides was used by the
Large Indian Civet as latrine site.
Irregular visits to the monitored
latrine site suggest that the animals have maintained other latrine sites too.
A species maintaining more than one latrine site can be attributed to territory
marking such as in otters (Torgerson
2014) and could be an interesting aspect of study. It could be a special vigilance
behavior of the small carnivores to avoid any risk or conflict around the
habitat.
The Malay
Civets Viverra tangalunga
were predominantly active from 1800 h to 0700 h (Colon 2006), and reported
frequent walking and sniffing as a physiological olfactory sense use of
carnivores to check the potential predator and conspecifics before the use of
the latrine site for defecation and urination. This could be attributed as a
special form of scent marking serving as
a commonly invoked chemical communication function (Irwin et al. 2004; Wronski et al. 2013; Dröscher
& Kappeler 2014; King et al. 2017) for
avoidance of parasite transmission (Gilbert 1997), avoidance of detection by
predators (Boonstra et al. 1996), and territoriality
(Gorman & Trowbridge 1989). The nocturnal and crepuscular activity would
help in increasing the encounters with prey (Colon 2006), a similar behavior
was observed in our current study.
For
figure & image - - click here
References
Appel, A., G.
Werhahn, R. Acharya, Y. Ghimirey
& B. Adhikary (2013). Small carnivores in the Annapsurna Conservation Area, Nepal. Vertebrate Zoology 63:
111–121.
Azlan, J. (2003). The diversity and conservation
of mustelids, viverrids, and herpestids in a
disturbed forest in Peninsular Malaysia. Small Carnivore Conservation
29: 8–9.
Boonstra, R., C.J. Krebs & A. Kenney
(1996). Why lemmings
have indoor plumbing in summer. Canadian. Journal of Zoology 74:
1947–1949.
Choudhury, A.
(2013). The
Mammals of North East India. Gibbon Books and the Rhino Foundation for
Nature in NE India, Guwahati, Assam, India.
Chutipong, W., N. Tantipisanuh,
D. Ngoprasert, A.J. Lynam,
R. Steinmetz, K.E. Jenks, J.L. Grassman, M. Tewes, S. Kitamura, M.C. Baker, W. McShea,
N. Bhumpakphan, R. Sukmasuang, G.A. Gale, F.K. Harich,
A.C. Treydte, P. Cutter, P.B. Cutter, S. Suwanrat, K. Siripattaranukul, Hala-Bala Wildlife Research Station, Wildlife Research
Division & J.W. Duckworth (2014). Current distribution and
conservation status of small carnivores in Thailand: a baseline review. Small
Carnivore Conservation 51: 96–136.
Colon, C.
(2006). Ranging behaviour and activity of the Malay civet (Viverra tangalunga) in a logged
and an unlogged forest in Danum Valley, East
Malaysia. Journal of Zoology 257: 473– 485. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952836902001073
Gray, T.N.E., C. Pin, C. Phan, R. Crouthers, J.F. Kamler & S. Prum (2014). Camera-trap records of small carnivores from
eastern Cambodia, 1999–2013. Small Carnivore Conservation 50: 20–24
Dröscher, I. & P. Kappeler
(2014). Maintenance
of familiarity and social bonding via communal latrine use in a solitary
primate (Lepilemur leucopus).
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 68: 2043–2058. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-014-1810-z
Duckworth,
J.W. (1997). Small
carnivores in Laos: a status review with notes on ecology, behaviour
and conservation. Small Carnivore Conservation 16: 1–21.
Ghimirey, Y. & R. Acharya (2014). Notes on the distribution of
Large Indian Civet in Nepal. Small Carnivore Conservation 50: 25–29.
Gorman, M.L.
& B.J. Trowbridge (1989). The role of odor in the social lives of carnivores, pp. 57–88. In: Gittleman, J.L. (ed.). Carnivore Behavior, Ecology, and
Evolution. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.
Gilbert, K.A.
(1997). Red howling
monkey use of specific defecation sites as a parasite avoidance strategy. Animal
Behavior 54: 451–455.
Irwin, M., K.
Samonds, J.L. Raharison
& P. Wright (2004). Lemur latrines: Observations of latrine behavior in wild primates and
possible ecological significance. Journal of
Mammalogy 85: 420–427. https://doi.org/10.1644/1545-1542(2004)085<0420:LLOOLB>2.0.CO;2
Jnawali, S.R., H.S. Baral,
S. Lee, K.P. Acharya, G.P. Upadhyay, M.
Pandey, R. Shrestha, D. Joshi, B.R. Laminchhane, J.
Griffiths, A.P. Khatiwada, N. Subedi
& R. Amin (compilers) (2011). The Status of Nepal Mammals: The National Red List
Series, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Kathmandu,
Nepal.
Jennings,
A.P. & G. Veron (2011). Predicted distributions and
ecological niches of 8 civet and mongoose species in Southeast Asia. Journal
of Mammalogy 92: 316–327.
Khatiwara, S. & T. Srivastava (2014). Red Panda Ailurus
fulgens and other small carnivores in Kyongnosla Alpine Sanctuary, East Sikkim, India. Small
Carnivore Conservation 50: 35–38.
King, T., R. Salom, L. Shipley, H. Quigley & D. Thornton (2017). Ocelot latrines: communication
centers for Neotropical mammals. Journal of Mammalogy 98: 106–113. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyw174
Lekagul, B. & J.A. McNeely (1977). Mammals of Thailand.
Association for the Conservation of Wildlife, Bangkok, Thailand, 758pp.
R Core Team
(2019). R: A
language and environment for statistical
computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna,
Austria.URL https://www.R-project.org/
Rowcliffe, J., M.R. Kays, B. Kranstauber, C. Carbone & P.A. Jansen (2014). Quantifying levels of animal
activity using camera trap data. Methods Ecology Evolution 5: 1170–1179.
Ridout, M.S. & M. Linkie (2009). Estimating overlap of daily activity patterns from
camera trap data. Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental
Statistics 14: 322–337.
Torgerson, T.
(2014). Latrine site
selection and seasonal habitat use of a coastal river otter population. A
Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Humboldt State University In Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in Natural
Resources: Wildlife, xi+91pp. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.35183.43685
Than, Z., H. Saw, Po. Tha, M. Myint, A.J. Lynam, T.L. Kyaw
& J.W. Duckworth (2008). Status and distribution of small carnivores in Myanmar. Small
Carnivore Conservation 38: 2–28.
Timmins,
R..J., J.W. Duckworth, W. Chutipong, Y. Ghimirey, D.H.A. Willcox, H. Rahman, B. Long & A.
Choudhury (2016). Viverra zibetha.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T41709A45220429. Accessed 19
May 2020. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.20161.RLTS.T41709A45220429.en
Wronski, T., A. Apio,
M. Plath & M. Ziege (2013). Sex difference in the
communicatory significance of localized defecation sites in Arabian Gazelles (Gazella arabica). Journal of Ethology 31: 129–140.