Review of the diet for Cerdocyon thous (Carnivora: Canidae), and the first record of Bothrops moojeni (Serpentes: Viperidae) as prey

The crab-eating fox Cerdocyon thous has a diverse diet ranging from plants to vertebrates, but its diet has never been comprehensively reviewed. Here, we provide the first such review and report the first-ever record of C. thous feeding on the Brazilian lancehead Bothrops moojeni , although other Both-rops species have been documented in the diet of this fox species.

The crab-eating fox, Cerdocyon thous (Linnaeus, 1766), belongs (Carnivora: Canidae) is a generalist and opportunist (Faria-Corrêa et al. 2009) and is known to feed on a wide diversity of species including venomous snakes (de Cassia Bianchi et al. 2014).However, no recent scientific study has offered a comprehensive review of the dietary items recorded for C. thous.Herein we provide that dietary summary, motivated by our recent field observation of this species eating a Brazilian lancehead Bothrops moojeni (Hoge, 1966) for which we offer a detailed account.
To identify available literature on the diet of C. thous, we performed a search using the Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science platforms with the keywords "Cerdocyon thous, diet."Our search considered all publications from the earliest found in the databases until March 2022, excluding unpublished dissertations and theses, and duplicate articles.Contributions that included data on the diet of C. thous were considered relevant, regardless of the written language and country of origin.From each relevant study, we harvested the following information: (1) dietary items reported, considering plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates; and (2) geographic location of the record.
We found 24 relevant studies during our literature review, which were published between 2002 and 2022.Cumulatively, these studies indicate that the diet of C. thous includes a wide range of plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates.The remarkably broad omnivorous dietary breadth of this animal suggests that knowledge of its dietary ecology at the level of individual prey species remains incompletely known.Previously identified dietary items for C. thous are enumerated in the supplementary material (1-4).
We add to this supplementary material by reporting the first case of C. thous consuming Bothrops moojeni.This venomous viper species is distributed throughout the Brazilian Cerrado where it inhabits mainly riverside areas (Nogueira et al. 2003).Reports of snakes of the genus Bothrops being preyed upon by other animals are particularly interesting because of the risk posed to predators by the potent venom of these snakes, which can cause serious physical damage (Nadur-Andrade et al. 2012).On 15 September 2016 at approximately 11:35 pm, while monitoring the herpetofauna of the "Nova Galia" sugar cane plantation in Paraúna, Goiás State, Brazil (17°18'46.33"S/ 50°29'21.73"W,elev.575 m), we observed a fox feeding on a still-living snake that it had immobilized on the ground with its front feet.The site was a recently-harvested sugar cane field with many stems scattered about and was approximately 90 m from a water body and 10 m from a dirt road.We identified the fox as C. thous based on its known distribution in the region and characteristics such as body size (about 6 kg), pointed face, short and narrow head, and grayish brown fur (Carlozzi 2011;Figs. 1a-b), plus the absence of a black spot at the base and tip of the tail which separates it from the similar co-occurring species Lycalopex vetulus (Lund, 1842) (Lemos et al. 2013).When the C. thous abandoned the remains of the snake, leaving about two-thirds of the body uneaten, we approached to examine it.We confirmed the identity of the snake as B. moojeni based on the known occurrence of the species in the region and the following physical features: an occipital stripe extending to the neck; a yellowish-brown to grayish-brown dorsum; dorsolateral triangle markings with an interrupted external line, center lighter than the edges, and light surrounding line; and a venter with almost no pigmentation (Campbell and Lamar 2004;Fig. 1c).The snake had a body length of approximately 50 cm, being an adult specimen.Soon after photography, we returned the snake carcass to the place of the predation event and

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Views of a crab-eating fox consuming a Brazilian lancehead a-b.Views of the Cerdocyon thous actively consuming a Brazilian lancehead Bothrops moojeni in Paraúna, Goiás State, Brazil, c. the remains of the snake after the fox temporarily abandoned it.