‘Shadows in the Forest’: Ecuador Trail Cams Spot Atypical Animals

Scientists were curious just how many animals with atypical coloration were stalking through the tropical forests of Ecuador. To find out, they set up a bunch of trail cams in Ecuador’s Llanganates-Sangay Connectivity Corridor and watched them for 12 years. Turns out, there are a bunch of animals out there with various atypical coloration due to genetic abnormalities like melanism, leucism, and/or albinism. One species in particular had a weirdly high rate of melanism, in which the animal’s fur or feathers are all black.

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In a newly published study sharing the results of the research, scientists report they discovered seven different species of terrestrial mammals with color variations ranging from melanism, white spotting/piebaldism, and xanthocromism (yellow coloration) to “progressive greying.” Notably, the scientists discovered a high prevalence of melanism in wild populations of the clouded oncilla. In fact, the research says about half of the clouded oncillas the cameras recorded during the survey period were melanistic.

The trail cams also discovered other “shadows in the forests” of Ecuador, including an albino stump-tailed porcupine, a piebald black agouti, a melanistic margay, and a yellow southern tamandua (exhibiting xanthocromism). The study also discusses how the behavior of these animals with atypical coloration differed from the behavior of their kin with typical coloration.

Read the full report here.

Header images from Viteri-Basso et. al.

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