Scraping marking behaviour of the largest Neotropical felids

BACKGROUND: Details of how, why and in what conditions large felids make scrapes is unknown. Here, we examined the general hypothesis about the use of scrapes for marking proposals, as well as to communicate with other individuals to signalize particular points or areas of interest, by studying scrape-marking behaviour of jaguars and pumas. METHODS: We surveyed by scrapes between five days and two months mainly during dry season in five study areas from Mexico (El Edén and San Ignacio), Belize (Cockscomb) and Brazil (Angatuba and Serra das Almas), which differed in presence and/or abundance of jaguars and pumas. Paths were slowly walked while searching for scrapes by teams normally composed of two people and tracks were stored in GPS, distinguishing the type of path surveyed (unpaved track roads, trails and cross-country). RESULTS: We found a total of 269 felid scrapes along 467 km of paths surveyed, obtaining a finding rate of 0.576 scrapes per km. Most scrapes were found in car tracks (0.629 scrapes per km), followed by trails (0.581 scrapes per km), and rarely did we find scrapes in cross country (0.094 scrapes per km). In trails, scrapes were found in a similar frequency in the centre and edge, whereas in car tracks they were mainly found in the edge. There were also clear differences in the position of the scrapes between study areas that differed in presence and/or abundance of pumas and jaguars, with scrapes located mainly in the centre in areas only with pumas, in the centre and in the edge in areas with a similar number of jaguars and pumas, and in the edge in area mainly dominated by jaguars. The remarking rate tended to be higher in one of the areas with only pumas where natural vegetation was scarcer. Felids chose sites mainly covered by leaves and located in paths less wide, clean and rarely used. DISCUSSION: Scraping was a frequent behaviour in the largest felids of America, although in some areas, scraping behaviour was rare. Scrapes seem to be signalizing some specific areas within territories and data suggest that they are made with the proposal of communication between individuals. It seems that a high scraping behaviour in pumas is not related to the presence of jaguars.