Eira barbara (Linnaeus, 1758)

Voss, Robert S. & Fleck, David W., 2017, Mammalian Diversity And Matses Ethnomammalogy In Amazonian Peru Part 2: Xenarthra, Carnivora, Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, And Sirenia, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2017 (417), pp. 1-1 : 1-

Eira barbara (Linnaeus, 1758)

Figure 15B

VOUCHER MATERIAL (TOTAL = 3): Nuevo San Juan (MUSM 11171, 13149), Orosa (AMNH

74116).

OTHER INTERFLUVIAL RECORDS: Actiamë ( Amanzo, 2006), Choncó ( Amanzo, 2006), Divisor ( Jorge and Velazco, 2006), Jenaro Herrera (Pavlinov, 1994), Quebrada Pobreza (Escobedo-Torres,

2015), Río Yavarí (Salovaara et al., 2003), Río Yavarí-Mirím (Salovaara et al., 2003), San Pedro (Valqui, 1999), Tapiche ( Jorge and Velazco, 2006).

IDENTIFICATION: Of the three tayra specimens known to have been collected in the Yavarí-Ucayali interfluve, one (AMNH 74116) is a juvenile, and another (MUSM 11171) cannot now be located. Fortunately, the remaining specimen (MUSM 13149) consists of the wellpreserved skin and skull of a fully adult individual that exhibits all the diagnostic external and craniodental traits attributed to the species by authors (e.g., Husson, 1978). Like many other tayra skins from northeastern Peru, MUSM 13149 has a grizzled-brownish head that does not contrast abruptly in coloration with the fur of the shoulders and middle back, the brownish tones of these regions darkening posteriorly and laterally to merge with the blackish pigmentation of the limbs, flanks, hindquarters, and tail. There is a small selfcream marking on the throat.

Tayras exhibit geographic variation in pelage color that is reflected in the description of numerous subspecies; Wozencraft (2005), for example, recognized eight, some of which have multiple synonyms. Our material perhaps represents the nominal form that Lönnberg (1913) called Eira barbara peruana Tschudi, 1844 , but analyses of mtDNA sequence data (Ruiz-Garcia et al., 2013) suggest an almost complete lack of phylogeographic structure in this species. Although a trinomial nomenclature of tayras seems pointless at the present time, we note that genetic data are currently lacking from Central American and Atlantic Forest populations, which might yet be shown to be taxonomically distinct. Morphometric data from our adult female voucher ( table 13 ) compare closely with homologous dimensions of Surinamese specimens ( Husson, 1978: table 45) and reinforce our impression that Amazonian tayras comprise a single, genetically cohesive, undifferentiated species.

ETHNOBIOLOGY: The Matses name for the tayra, batachued (“one that likes sweet food”), derives from their observation that tayras eat sweet wild tree fruits and ripe plantains and papayas from Matses swiddens. There are no archaic synonyms or overdifferentiated varieties, and the Matses term differs from the name for tayra in other Panoan languages. Some Matses include the tayra in the category bëdi, which otherwise designates felids and wild canids.

The tayra is not eaten by the Matses, who consider it a pest and often call it “thief ” because it frequently feeds on plantains and papayas in Matses swiddens. Tayras also eat chickens that are ranging at the edge of the village during the day, but they do not raid coops. When dogs pursue a tayra, the tayra sometimes bites the dogs. Tayras are not kept as pets.

Matses with young children avoid having any contact with or even looking at tayras, lest the tayra’s spirit make their children ill. Symptoms of tayra sickness include a high fever (but not constant thirst, as is case with contagions induced by felids). To treat this ailment, certain medicinal plants (“tayra medicine”) are collected, and the sick child is bathed with an infusion of their leaves. It is noteworthy that, unlike felid-induced contagions, tayra sickness is not treated with jaguar medicine, suggesting that the folk-taxonomic association of tayras with other members of the bëdi category is not strong.

MATSES NATURAL HISTORY: The tayra has a dark body and a light-colored head and neck. It has the shape of a dog with long neck. It has a furry tail. It has a distinctive but not strong smell.

Tayras are found in all habitat types, including upland and floodplain forest, and in primary and secondary forest. They are frequently encountered in secondary forest while walking to swiddens, in primary forest while hunting, and on the banks of rivers and streams while traveling by canoe or motorized boat.

The tayra is diurnal. It walks on the ground and also climbs high up in trees. It comes to swiddens to eat ripe plantains, bananas, and papayas. It stashes plantains at the base of a tree and covers them with leaves. It eats fallen fruits on the ground and up in trees. It can be heard rustling branches as it climbs through trees. It often walks on the trunks of fallen trees and defecates on the fallen trees. Its feces often have many seeds of fruits. It climbs high up in trees when it sees people. It sleeps in the same hole in a tree every night.

Tayras are usually solitary, but they also travel in pairs, trios, or sometimes larger groups. They give birth to two young in a den in a hole in a tree.

Jaguars and pumas eat tayras.

The tayra snarls.

Tayras eat all types of sweet things, including ripe bananas, plantains, papayas, and wild dicot tree fruits, such as those of diden këku ( Couma macrocarpa [ Apocynaceae ]), bata ( Pseudolmedia spp. and/or Maquira spp. [ Moraceae ]), and këku ( Parahancornia peruviana [ Apocynaceae ]). They also eat the fruits of cecropia trees (Cecropia spp. [ Moraceae ]). They drink honey from beehives. They also eat meat, particularly agoutis, acouchies, spiny rats, lizards, tinamous, bird eggs, and hatchlings. (One informant said he saw a large group of tayras chase a gray brocket deer, kill it, and start eating it.)

REMARKS: Matses interviews about tayras include many of the salient facts about this versatile diurnal omnivore mentioned in the literature reviewed by Presley (2000), including its use of every forest stratum from ground level to canopy. Additionally, Matses observations confirm the tayra’s curious habit of caching fruit stolen from gardens (Soley and Alvaro-Díaz, 2011), and they provide novel information about predation on this species by jaguars and pumas. However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of tayra biology contained in these accounts and in Matses interviews about Dasypus pastasae (see above) are the suggestions that tayras hunting in groups can kill larger prey than solitary tayras can subdue. Although the notion of tayras attacking ungulates seems implausible, this behavior was previously reported by Villa (1948), who witnessed a solitary individual chasing a deer; if one of our informants is to be believed, tayras hunting deer cooperatively are sometimes successful.

Figures

FIG. 15. Adult skulls of five sympatric mustelid species illustrating taxonomic differences in size and shape: Galictis vittata (A, MUSM 15157), Eira barbara (B, MUSM 13149), Mustela africana (C, AMNH 61813), Pteronura brasiliensis (D, AMNH 74431), Lontra longicaudis (E, AMNH 98589). All illustrated specimens are from eastern Peru, but only MUSM 13149 and MUSM 15157 are from the Yavarí-Ucayali interfluve.

Tables

TABLE 13 Measurements (mm) and Weights (g) of Adult Mustelid Specimens from the Yavarí-Ucayali Interfluve

	Eira barbara MUSM 13149	Galictis vittata MUSM 15157	Lontra longicaudis MUSM 11172a	Pteronura brasiliensis MUSM 11173b
Sex	female	female	unknown	female
Head-and-body length	641	523	—	1015
Length of tail	398	150	—	592
Hind foot	115	83	—	174
Ear	40	31	—	28
Weight	4900	2260	—	—
Condylobasal length	111.4	88.8	104.4	146.5
Nasal length	—	20.9	—	—
Least interorbital breadth	27.9	19.6	19.3	17.6
Least postorbital breadth	26.3	20.8	14.4	15.9
Zygomatic breadth	70.9	49.5	63.2	92.5
Breadth of braincase	50.2	41.0	51.5	73.7
Maxillary toothrowc	30.9	25.8	34.6	48.6
Breadth of M1	8.1	7.6	12.4	15.8

Measurements (mm) and Weights (g) of Adult Mustelid Specimens from the Yavarí-Ucayali Interfluve

a Shot by a Matses hunter; sex unrecorded and no external measurements taken.

b Found dead; not sufficiently intact to weigh.

c From C1 to M1.