Foraging and feeding by bat-eared foxes <i>Otocyon megalotis</i> in the southwestern Kalahari

Abstract

Bat-eared foxes Otocyon megalotis feed in pairs or groups of three when utilizing clumped prey in patches, e.g. termites, and cover 0,87-1,28 km/h. When feeding on dispersed prey, e.g. insect larvae, they are widely spaced and cover 0,56-0,83 km/h. Food patches are never re-utilized on the same day. Patch size diameter varied from 6-30 m, and patches were 10 to &gt; 100 m apart, while from 1,17 min to 15 min were spent in patches. There were no significant correlations between patch size and distance moved to next patch, or time spent in a patch and distance moved to next patch, or time spent in a patch and patch size. Patches were seldom (1,6 ) returned to immediately. A male and a female had similar numbers of feeding bouts per sampling period during winter or summer, but when accompanied by cubs the male fed less frequently. The male had significantly longer feeding bouts than the female in winter, with the reverse applying in summer. Within-sex comparisons show that the number of feeding bouts of the male did not vary significantly between winter and summer. Conversely the female showed significant differences in the number but not the duration of feeding bouts in winter and summer. Optimal foraging in this species probably relates to prey profitability, i.e. highest ingestion rate.

Genetic and spatial structure within a swift fox population

“…A bias towards female philopatry is most common among social mammals (Eisenberg 1997), and is typical of small‐bodied canids (e.g. red foxes, V. vulpes , von Schantz 1981; bat‐eared foxes, Otocyon megalotis , Nel, Mills & Van Aarde 1984; crab‐eating foxes, Cerdocyon thous , Macdonald & Courtenay 1996). There was a slight bias towards male dispersal within the swift fox population with more males dispersing than females (Karki 2003).…”

Adult male emigration and a female-based social organization in swift foxes, Vulpes velox

“…For exam~le. female bat-eared foxes den communallv (Nel et al 1984;Malcolm 1986) and successfully rear liie; in the absence of males (Maas 1993), indicating that food provisioning by males is not necessary for pup survival. Male Blanford's foxes do not provide any food to nursing females or young, and pups depend on their mother's milk until they begm to forage for themdves (Geffen & Macdonald 1992); however, males do accompany young (Geffen & Macdonald 1992), as we obsemed for swift foxes.…”

Genetic structure, spatial organization, and dispersal in two populations of bat‐eared foxes

“…The bat‐eared fox ( Otocyon megalotis ) is a small canid in Africa that is often regarded as a group living species, although some populations consist primarily of mated pairs (Lamprecht ; Nel et al. ; Malcolm ; Maas and Macdonald ; Wright et al. ).…”

“…Reasons for pair living versus group living in bat‐eared foxes are not known, but are thought to be related to mortality, predation levels, abundance and dispersion of food resources (Nel et al. ; Maas and Macdonald ; Kamler et al. , ).…”