Red-rumped agouti

Red-rumped agouti

Subject :Environment

Context:

In news-

• Red-rumped agouti are being traded even more than the listed species in various conventions.

Red-rumped agouti

• The red-rumped agouti (Dasyprocta leporina), also known as the golden-rumped agouti, orange-rumped agouti or Brazilian agouti, is a species of agouti from the family Dasyproctidae.

Distribution

• It is native to northeastern South America, where found in Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, northeastern Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago and Saint Lucia in the Caribbean.
• It has also been introduced to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Grenada, and Dominica.

Habitat

• It is found in a wide range of forests, including rainforest and secondary forest.

Diet

• Food mostly consists of seeds, pulp, leaves, roots and fruits.
• They also feed on insect larvae when plant resources are low.
• They are known to feed on and disperse Astrocaryumaculeatissimum seeds, as well as Hymenaeacourbaril seeds.

Other unlisted species which are found to be traded more than those of listed species–

• Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth (Choloepus diductylus)
• The Caribou (Rangifer tarandus)
• Asian or Chinese water dragon (Physignathuscocincinus)
• Russian tortoise (Testudo Horsfieldii)