Bush Dogs in Central America: Recent Range Expansion, Cryptic Distribution, or Both?:

Bushdogs ( Speothosvenaticus) are a small, wide-ranging neotropical pack-hunting canid whose ecology is relatively poorly known. Here, we document new, repeated observations of bushdog groups in east-central (Barbilla National Park) and south-eastern (La Amistad International Park) Costa Rica that suggest either that their recent or historic range has been underestimated, or that their potential range in Central America may have recently expanded and could now include not only borderlands with Panamabut perhaps a substantial portion of the Talamanca Mountains up to 120 km to the north-northwest and at elevations up to 2,119 m. In light of their inherently low density, documenting the current and future distribution of bushdogs in Central America will be challenging.