Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Giant anteater (
Myrmecophaga tridactyla
)
As we moved on, nothing could have prepared us for the next sighting. In a grassland to
our left, Edson's sharp eyes spotted a hovering bird. It was the most dashing of raptors, an
aplomado falcon. The aerial predator was preoccupied, following something gliding through
the tall grass. Then a head with pointed ears emerged. The maned wolf looked around for a
second and moved on. The falcon persisted, perhaps planning to feast on the large insects or
birds scared up during the terrestrial predator's afternoon hunt.
Shadows fell over the rugged escarpment in the distance as the afternoon wore on. We
drove out of the park and entered the agricultural zone—“the Ag,” for short. An hour later,
our magical sightings of the wolf and the falcon, the merganser and giant anteater, began to
feel like a dream. This had been only a first taste of the Cerrado's wildlife. To learn more
about how these animals navigated the last natural pockets embedded in a landscape of soy
and cattle would require a longer stay, and for that I had decided to join an unlikely pair of
long-term researchers.
March 2008. The sea of grasses undulated in the warm, dry breezes. A tall, blond woman
dressed in khakis and field vest reached down to release her dog from its leash. “Okay,
Mason, let's go to work!” The dog dashed into the tall grass of Emas National Park. Every so
often a grassy wave broke over the upright tail of the black Labrador retriever as he bounded
through a large marshy area bordering a palm glade. The tail zigged and zagged through the
wet pampa. Carly Vynne, then a PhD candidate at the University of Washington in Seattle,
kept her eye on the dog. Within minutes, Mason returned with a look of great urgency. “What
is it, Mason? Let's go look.” Having grabbed her attention, Mason led us back through the
muck and stood with his nose pointed toward the base of a grass clump.
At first we couldn't see anything. Then we bent down and noticed a cylindrical dropping
half submerged below the tussock. Bingo. In a vast expanse of grassland filled with thousands
of smells, Mason had detected the scent of rarity: he had sniffed out the droppings of a giant
anteater. Carly could barely contain her excitement. Gathering herself, she placed a sample
of anteater dung in a vial of preservative to protect the scat sample and the precious strands
of DNA it contained from further degradation. Those convinced that dogs are superior to hu-
mans praise their loyalty, good nature, and capacity for unconditional love. Scientists appre-
ciate another canine advantage—dogs have an uncanny sense of smell, surpassed only by that
of bears and, by coincidence, the giant anteater. The homely bloodhound, with the keenest
nose of any dog, possesses a sense of smell 300 times more acute than that of its handlers.
Bloodhounds can detect a scent nearly two weeks old, but they are a lot harder to train than
Labradors.
Sniffer dogs have recently been recruited for biological field studies because they excel
at locating the fecal tidings of rare mammals. Carly had invited me to join the last year of
