Bdeogale nigripes Peters 1850

22.

Black-footed Mongoose

Bdeogale nigripes

French: Mangouste a pattes noires / German: Schwarzfufimanguste / Spanish: Mangosta calzada

Other common names: Black-legged Mongoose

Taxonomy. Bdeogale nigripes Pucheran, 1855,

Gabon.

Some authors consider B. nigripes to be conspecific with Jackson’s Mongoose (5. jacksoni), but others believe that there are sufficient skin and skull differences to consider them as two separate species. Monotypic.

Distribution. SE Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and PR Congo. Also reported from Angola, but this is rejected by some authors.

Descriptive notes. Head-body 46-63 cm (males), 45-65 cm (females), tail 30-38. 5 cm (males), 29-40 cm (females), hindfoot 9.4-11. 5 cm (males), 9.4-11. 3 cm (females), ear 3.3-9 cm (males), 3-:3.3-7 cm (females); weight 2.4-8 kg. A large, short-haired gray mongoose, with dark-colored legs. The pelage is usually grayish-white, but can sometimes be brownish-red; the hairs have white and brown rings, tipped with white. The color of the underparts varies from grayish-white to dark brown. The underfuris dense and short with yellow to brown hairs 10-12 mm long; the guard hairs are 20 mm or less in length. The forehead and muzzle are short-haired and are lighter colored than the body. The muzzle is blunt, with a large rhinarium divided by a median groove that continues on the upper lip as a naked strip. The ears are short and wide. The color of the throat and belly varies from grayish-white to dark brown. The tail is white to yellowish, moderately bushy, and slightly tapering. The legs and the feet range from light brown to brownish-black. The foreand hindfeet have four slightly webbed digits; the hallux and the pollex are missing. The soles are hairy up to the pads. There are two pairs of teats. The skull is the largest of all West African mongooses and is long and relatively narrow, the zygomatic breadth being almost exactly half of the condylobasal length. The braincase is ovoid and has a sharp sagittal crest; the occipital crest is broad and flange-like. The frontal region is slightly elevated and smoothly rounded, and the post-orbital constriction is markedly less than the inter-orbital breadth. The posterior part of the skull is notably short. The front section of the auditory bulla is small, the posterior chamber is well inflated. Dental formula: 1 3/3, C 1/1, P 4/4, M 2/2 = 40. The molars are as broad as long, giving a squarish appearance, and are low-cusped, suggesting that they have a crushing rather than slicing function.

Habitat. Primary rainforest, up to a least 1000 m.

Food and Feeding. In the Central African Republic, 86% of scats contained arthropods; the frequency of occurrence of other food items in scats was: 48% mammals (including 19% insectivores, 14% rodents, and 10% squirrels), 14% reptiles and amphibians, and 5% fruit. Termites and driver ants (Dorylus and Myrmecaria sp.) were found in three out of nine specimen stomachs collected from the PR Congo.

Activity patterns. Said to be nocturnal, but there are some reports of diurnal observations. Rests in holes between the roots of big trees and in the dens of African Brushtailed Porcupines (Atherurus africanus).

Movements, Home range and Social organization. Believed to be solitary, but has been seen in pairs.

Breeding. In West Africa, breeding may occur at the beginning of the dry season: three capturedjuveniles were born between early November and earlyJanuary. According to the Mbuti pygmies of the DR Congo, there are usually one or two young; a female and one young were collected in early December in the Ituri Forest.

Status and Conservation. Classified as Least Concern in The IUCN Red List. Numbers may be declining as a result of forest loss and fragmentation (from logging, mining, and slash and burn farming), and to a lesser degree from bushmeat hunting. Field surveys, ecological studies, and assessments of threats are needed.

Bibliography. Bequaert (1922), Carpaneto & Germi (1989a, 1989b), Crawford-Cabral (1989), Kingdon (1997), Perez et al. (2006), Ray & Sunquist (2001), Rosevear (1974), Van Rompaey & Colyn (In press a), Wozencraft (2005).