Bogota is not only a jungle of cement where more than ten million people live. In the wetlands, parks and other green or rural areas of the Colombian capital there exists a wide and little-known diversity of fauna that includes more than 50 species of mammals. All of them are at risk due to factors such as land-use change with construction that affects wetlands and the trees that are cut down to build buildings.
In the city there are opossums, foxes and weasels as well as bats, deer and mice, all of which have been documented in the book “Mamiferos rolos: Una guia para conocerlos y conservarlos” (“Mammals of Bogota: A Guide to Know and Conserve Them”), prepared by Alexandra Castaneda Murillo, a biologist from the National University of Colombia (UNAL). In total, there are 57 species that live in the city, often unknown to people who are also unaware of their importance in the ecosystem.
“For example, shrews —small and almost blind animals associated with forests and areas of leaf litter and logs—, although we often do not even perceive them, play a fundamental role in ecosystems, since when they dig into the soil to find worms and insects they aerate the soil,” says biologist Castaneda Murillo, quoted in a bulletin from the UNAL News Agency.
Mammals fulfill ecological functions
The biodiversity of Bogota is so important that it concentrates 10.4% of the country’s mammal species. There are 25 species of mice and 24 of bats that make up 86% of the capital’s species. “Even in the midst of concrete, mammals fulfill crucial ecological functions such as seed dispersal, pollination, the biological control of insects that can be pests, or soil aeration, a process referring to gas exchange that supplies oxygen to plants and macroorganisms,” explains the biologist.
One of the novelties of the work of researcher Castaneda Murillo, according to the UNAL News Agency, is that she built a map with the presence and frequent location of each mammal, as well as the latest record available to date, based on the review of databases and bibliography from the District Secretariat of Environment and the Environmental Management Office of UNAL, as well as specimens from the collections of the ICN and the Humboldt Institute.
The book includes entries with a photo of each species and information such as the family to which it belongs, type of mammal (flying or terrestrial), common names and scientific name, conservation status and habitat, as well as a size scale compared to humans and a description of its natural history with data on diet, behavior, reproduction, shelters and a characteristic feature of its ecological function.
For example, the opossum —also called fara, chucha or runcho— is part of the Didelphidae family, its body is robust with long dorsal fur and the females have an abdominal pouch called a marsupium that functions as an incubator for the young. It is distributed in localities such as Usme, San Cristobal, Rafael Uribe Uribe or Santa Fe.
Another case is the free-tailed bat, weighing between 7 and 12 grams, with dark olive-brown fur and a thick and long tail. Its diet consists of flying insects such as cicadas, crickets, flies, moths and especially beetles. It can be observed in localities such as Usaquen or Santa Fe.
But the animals “no longer have where to live, eat or feed,” warns the researcher. “For example, bats no longer find throughout the year the fruits from trees that they eat. People are unaware of mammals and are afraid of them. Sometimes, they even run over opossums by accident, without thinking about the control of insect populations that these mammals provide.”
The guide to learn about and conserve the mammals of Bogota (which is in the process of editing as researchers are making updates and including information), is organized by categories: small and medium mammals, and large mammals such as the crab-eating fox, the clouded tiger cat, the skunk, the tayra or the weasel, among other animals distributed throughout all the localities of the city.