Iquitos

Streaked Dwarf Porcupine (Coendou ichillus) in the Iquitos area (northeastern Peru)

Paul Carter. 8 July 2023.
Website: www.pacapix.com. Email: paulcarter@pacapix.com.
A citable version was posted on Zenodo here on 9 July 2023: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8128848

Summary

On the nights of 20 and 23 June 2023 I photographed Streaked Dwarf Porcupine (Coendou ichillus, Voss and da Silva, 2001) in lowland forest 60 km south of Iquitos (Loreto, northeastern Peru), having found both with a thermal scope whilst in the company of Juan Pacaya (a guide from Tahuayo Lodge). These two records appear to be the first in situ records from northeastern Peru. C. ichillus is a poorly known porcupine confirmed from only nine sites (Ramírez-Chaves et al, 2020). One of the two sites in Peru is the Iquitos area in northeastern Peru where the only known specimen is a juvenile purchased by Pekka Soini in 1971 from a market near Iquitos and its collection point was never known (Voss and da Silva, 2001).

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