Argentina field notes, v1530

Pearson, Oliver P. (Oliver Payne)
Unknown
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley
Original Source
Source Material:
Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. | www.biodiversitylibrary.org

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O. P. Pearson 1990-1992 Argentina Catalogue #7865-8051 Journals Species Accounts Indeces
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O. P. Pearson 1990 Argentina Catalogue #7865-7873
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Pearson - 1990 Catalog Estancia La Primavera, N.W. Confluencia, Neuquen, Argentina November 7865 Amberat. contains plant stems, vertebrate bone fragments, spider, mouse pellets, seed husks? fairly well consolidated with black shyracuum. Little odor. Length of a couple of the embedded driftlings: 4 11 Shape of pellets Consistent with Phyllotis, 6 ||| | 2 embriolent in some, 1 and 8 1 Points in others. When soaked, the water turns red/brown color, no large plant fragments incorporated in the main mass. The pellets under dissecting scope contain only fine plant material. One a more paler grain in marked up main mass. Specimen consists of one chunk broken by me into 3 pieces 7866 Amberat. Probably the most-consolidated chunk in this collection. Lots of shining black gunk cementing rat droppings. Small twigs of Austrocedrus stuck to it 7867 Well cemented chunk of amberat, Phyllotis-rigel pellets, Considerable plant fiber 7868 Amberat. Moderately consolidated pellets, considerable easily accessible plant fibers. 3 mm Frequency distribution of loose pellets at the bottom of the Nido Can: 4 1 5 |||| ||| 6 |||| ||| | 7 ||| || 8 4 9 1 78
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Pearsons 1990 Valle Encantado, 5 km SE Confluencia, Neuquen, Argentina December 8 7869 Amberat. From cavern near El Cantinela, Fossaly consolidated, includes much plant material and numerous mouse bones including a Chelemys 3 length facial 4 II pellets 5 III II 6 IV I 7 III I 8 I 9 I 7870 amberat, Fossaly consolidated, includes much plant material plus pellet plus numerous mouse bones including a good mandible of Phyllotis and a good very small (young?) mandible of a guinea pig (Microcavia) 3 4 5 III I 6 IV I III II 7 III I 8 III 9 7871 Amberat pieces. La Primavera, 9 km NW Confluencia November 7872 Amberat pieces. 7873 amberat. a lot of about 8 pieces, sent to Bateman, and Acrofs.
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O. P. Pearson 1990 Argentina Journal
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Pearson-1990 1 Journal June 21. Bariloche. Flew in from the SAREM/ASM Mammal Meetings in Buenos Aires with Mary Taylor and Bill Kamp. Flew over the marsh at Estancia El Condor: it was dry and brown looking. No snow in town. June 22. Drove out to Llao Llao peninsula and bamboo area. Saw chucuas, Huet Huets, numerous condors, lots of fruits of rosa mosqueta. No parrots or doves. June 23. Drove down the Limay Valley and then up to the lookout over Lago Traful. The Limay Valley at the Anfiteatro was full of low, freezing fog which lifted somewhat while we were there, revealing willows etc. covered with frost. Also to Laguna Los Juncos, which was completely dry. Reithrodons were "locally abundant" at Marful's Estancia La Fragua. Did not see Condors there in spite of the fact that it was late afternoon. Precious scene of two gauchos on horseback at Cerro Leones with a third car horse with a couple of dozen hares draped on each side of the saddle. June 24. Visited with Gallopins. June 25. Visited the Museum in Bariloche and visited with Chehebar and Ramilo. Asado at the Boliche at Nahuel Huapi with Patricia Fierro and Jorge Vallerini. The Jones daughter who lives at the Jones place at Nahuel Huapi says that they still have bats in the attic and that they are there all year round. June 26. Bariloche. Visited with Adrian and the Rapoports at Ecotono. Also a visit from Ellen Pedersen who did the study of vocalizations of Ctenomys sociabilis. Then flew to Buenos Aires. Bariloche, October October 27. Flew to Bariloche from Buenos Aires. The steppe in general looked very dry and brown, but the marsh at Estancia El Condor was fairly green. Everyone says the winter was dry, not much snow, and the spring very warm. Certainly not much snow on the mountains. Rocks showing through the snow already on Cerro Lopez. Apple trees blooming, some Scotch broom in bloom, Notro in early bloom along the streets of Bariloche, and Sorbus, and Crataegus. Rosa mosqueta not blooming. October 28. Bariloche. Car started. Mrs. Simcic killed by auto in August. Paid the daughter. Went up Cerro Otto to the marked bamboos. The Notro up on the mountain not in bloom. Berberis percei and B. parodi? blooming, the lenga leaves almost fully out, no signs of snow. Dandelions in full bloom where we park the car near Piedras Blancas. New bamboo shoots (a few) up about 4 or 5 inches.
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Pearson-1990 2 Two fragments of owl pellets under a big lenga at the edge of the meadow where we park up on Cerro Otto contained 3 Auliscomys. Weather in morning was sunny clear and warm, then clouded over but remained fairly warm, not windy. October 29. Bariloche. Sunny, warm, no wind. Saw Michael Christie in the morning, plus shopping. Then up to the bamboo on Cerro Otto where we counted marked leaves again. October 30. Bariloche. To Fundacion Bariloche to see Gallopins then up Cerro Otto to the bamboo again. In one place in the open lenga forest, big black ants were gathering and piling up fallen blossoms of lenga. Back about 3 pm, then visits from Eleda Bettinelli, Patricia Fierro, and Adrian Monjeau. Then to Gallopin's to try to get my printer working. Weather cooler, a sprinkle at dusk. October 31. Bariloche. Day cool, clear, windy. Errands around town and tried to fix printer. Michael Christie says that there was considerable rain off and on during the winter, some of the storms enough to make the Rio Limay muddy. He thinks that pellets from the La Primavera cave that contain only lizard are probably sparrow hawk or ground tyrant. November 1- Bariloche. Went out to Llao Llao Peninsula to record bamboo data. Stopped to re-photo the Llao Llao Hotel to compare with 1946 photo. Could hardly see the hotel for the coihue trees that had grown up in a grove. In the unmowed grass below the hotel was a flock of about 20 parrots, 8 lapwings, and two geese. Heard parrots later while we were in the bamboo forest. The park has dug two more tank traps to deny vehicular access to the trail back to Lago Escondido. Saw nobody, but there had been some molestation of the Clump at the trail crossroads. Returned via the Circuito Chico. Day sunny, brisk. Dinner with Gallopins. The Systems Group of the Fundacion Bariloche continues to survive via foreign grants and foreign contract research. November 2. Drove to La Primavera. Lorenzo Sympson, the Administrador, was not home but got permission to camp down the road across from the eastern-most terminal moraine along a little stream. Then hiked across the big "pasture" to the rock turret at the end of the moraine above the river and put traps in the cave with the animal amber. Put about 6 steel traps and 15 big Shermans baited with oatmeal in the cave among the fallen rock and bushels of mouse droppings, and also 2 steel traps and 3 Shermans at the base of a big cipres about 100 yards away. No droppings at the cipres, and no barked branches. Numerous small twigs of cipres in the cave (dried), plus some sheep droppings and viscacha. Above the cave with broken rock on the floor is another deeper cave but with smooth bottom and sides. It has lots of viscacha droppings in it but no mouse droppings and no amber.
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Pearson-1990 3 Hence, viscachas don't make the amber? Then hiked up to the cliffs above our campsite, where shallow caves were visible. But no droppings, no broken rock. The vegetation on the way up is strictly like Cerro Leones or like the hike up to the cave at Estacion Perito Moreno November 3- La Primavera. Sprinkles off and on overnight. At dawn snow mixed with drizzle, wind. It is about 2 km from the road back to the cave at the end of the moraine. Lots of hare tracks in the flat pasture, especially in the open sandy part. Ponderosa pine seedlings surviving there in what seems an impossible arid windy area. Nothing in my trap line in the cave. No sign of fresh droppings or fresh cuttings. Anita's 24 Shermans and 2 steel traps set mostly in Colletia (espina negra) along the moraine caught 2 adult Oryzomys and 5 adult Abrothrix. There was considerable new snow on the surrounding hills, none on the grond here although a little collected on the tent. Collected droppings and amber in the cave, and plants from nearby to use for comparison with contents of fecal pellets. The nearest cipres is about 25 m away but dead. The next closest is about 50 m. Nearest vegetation is calafate (Berberis), Ephedra, espina negra, neneo, radal, Senecio, Mayten, Acaena, bunchgrass, willows on the river. The cave is considerably below the level of the the bunchgrass pasture and much lower than the top of the terminal moraine, so it would have been uninhabitable at the time of the earliest glaciation in the valley. Weather cleared briefly at mid-day, so we drove down to Confluencia and photoed two ancient-photo scenes, But then it started to snow again and snowed heavily at times. Our campsite on the creek has numerous small Gunnera plants in it. Also one small nire (Nothofagus antarctica) with llao llao growing on it. This is the only nire I know of near here. November 4- La Primavera. Cleared partially during the night, full moon. Minimum temperature 31 F., light frost, not as windy. Picked up my traps at the cave; none of them touched. Then collected various scats, bones, plants etc. in the cave. Numerous deposits containing short half-inch lengths of plant stem that must be either nesting material or mid-ribs or something left over after eating. Anita found a dried tail about right size for Phyllotis, and numerous small bones and jaws. The jaws seem to be Abrothrix, Auliscomys, Buneomys, and Reithrodon. Add to this two giant tuco tucos found by Michael Christie and me last year. Anita is sorting droppings and finds sizes ranging from viscacha (Lagidium), rat, Buneomys, and smaller mouse. Then broke camp and drove up to the Casco and visited with the Administrator Lorenzo Sympson, his wife Graciella, and young son Guillermo.
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He has only been on the Estancia for a year or two, but says he has never seen viscachas on the estancia (but there were viscacha droppings at the cave higher up where Michael found amber 1st year). Summary on the cave: Lots of viscacha droppings (only) in the upper cave, but no amber up there, hence viscachas probably not responsible. Lower cave is good habitat for Phyllotis, but in all the other localities where we have found Phyllotis we have never found amber. If there were something special about the vegetation eaten by the responsible animal at La Primavera, it might account for the amber, but the vegetation is just the same as in many other places in the precordillera. Lorenzo says his sister lives on an estancia on the Pichi Leufu River and that she has seen similar amber in caves there. November 5- Bariloche. Errands around town and visited with Michael Christie, Cacho Carranzo, Eddie and Barbara Rapaport, and the Flueks. 41 degrees overnight. November 6- Drove to La Veranada and measured bamboo. Lupines not yet blooming, Scotch broom in early bloom, some Berberis darwinii. The nire leaves at La Veranada are mostly out. Day sunny, fresh. Heard chucas at the bamboo area and saw a Scytalopus. About 5 horses grazing there. November 7- Bariloche. Minimum temperature on our balcony overnight was 40 F; light frost on car out front. November 9- Bariloche. Sunny and fresh. Gave talk at Woodville School. Gave a Sherman trap to one eager boy: Antonio Balseiro. Cohen's son is headmaster. Graham Harris's book on birds of Patagonia is in press in Chile. Puttered with printers and finally got one working. November 10- Left after lunch for Rio Pichi Leufu. Stopped at a cliff about 4 km before the river and found lots of viscacha scats, some Buneomys scats. No real caves, but overhangs and small dry places under big rocks. No sign of amber. Numerous big (up to 2 m tall) ?Ephedra bushes (check identification), plus calafate, neneo, Senecio, and bunchgrass. Then drove north on the dirt road that goes down the river on the east side. Looked at a few cavey places, abundant viscacha droppings, no amber. Stopped at a long cliff 12km by road north of the bridge on Route 23. I set 25 big Shermans and 2 steel traps along the base of the cliff; lots of bushy vegetation and bunchgrass such as calafate, palo pichi, baccharis, much like Cerro Leones. Lots of viscacha droppings; Buneomys droppings in a few places. Clear cold and windy. Anita set 19 traps along the cliff and under boulders. Camped on a ridge about a km NE. November 11- 12km by road N bridge over the Rio Pichi Leufu. Night clear, temp. 32F. Morning sunny. Nothing in Anita's traps, only two Phyllotis in mine. Could see mouse footprints in the desert at various places. Saw one viscacha up on the skyline above the trap line, and another along the main road where we had stopped yesterday. Almost every rocky place where we
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looked for amber we found viscacha droppings. Bither they produce an enormous number or else the droppings last forever. Back to Bariloche at lunchtime. Two freshly dead hares along the road (Sunday morning). Adrian Monjeau dropped in. He encountered an Indian woman (on the train) who recognized his drawing of the head of a Lestodelphys, said it had a fat tail, and that the Indian name for it was DROL. November 12- Bariloche. Cool, mostly clear. Worked on bamboo data. November 13- Bariloche. Cloudy, windy. Went out to Cerro Leones with Werner and Joanna Flueck to look for amber and owl pellets. As we were walking up the slope to the cliff, a caretaker accosted us and said that there was no trespassing and that we would have to get permission of the owner to go up to the cliff. The owner Hector ?Leonetti runs the Cerro Leon chocolate shop. We drove back to town and went to see him. He was adamant about people disturbing eagles that were nesting on "our" cliff, and people shooting viscachas. Then he went into the back room and came out with a 6- foot teenage boy and asked did I remember this boy. I did not, but the boy had tagged along with us setting traps below the cliff years ago! Visited Adam Hayduk in the morning. He has been working on Indian archeology on Isla Victoria and has dates about 50 years BC. Says that Tonni in La Plata identified the lower end of a leg bone of a camellid as Llama, not guanaco. Adam talks about evidence that there were domesticated llamas in southern Chile in early Spanish times. November 14- Bariloche. Cloudy, very windy, some rain. Worked on manuscripts. November 15- Scattered clouds, not cold. Visit from Michael Christie. He thinks that Ctenomys sociabilis is the most endangered rodent in Patagonia...becuse of its small area of distribution, the danger of flooding of part of its area by a new dam, and the planting of pine trees on the rest of its area. He thinks Dolichotis is pretty much restricted to Monte habitat and does not have anywhere near the extensive distribution figured by Mares in the Pymatuning volume. Christie has no evidence that hares are competing with it. Was it Taber that studied them? He also thinks that Lagidium wolffsohni is probably very endangered. He has seen skins in the British Museum and has no doubt that they are a huge, hairy, good species. He discusses Lestodelphys and Notiomys in his 1984 paper in Revista del Mus. Arg. Cien. Nat. Bernardino Rivadavia, Zool., 13:535-544. He now thinks that pine plantations and reservoirs are the greatest threat to wildlife. November 16- Sunny and warm. Drove to Llao Llao for photo and bamboo. The Scotch Broom in full flower but not quite maximum. Heard parrots in the forest. Dinner with Patricia Fierro and Jorge Vallerini. He thinks the giant Ephedra may be just retamo (Diostea). He participated in a study with Boelke on effect of fertilization of mallines in this area. The effect was impressive...but uneconomic.
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Pearson-1990 6 November 17- Bariloche. When I looked out our bedroom window at 6:30 a.m. (still completely dark), two or more bats were flying back and forth, almost within reach, seemingly cornering insects in the corner between our building and the wall next door. November 18- Warm and sunny. Bamboo in morning. Left for Comallo after lunch. Stopped for a sample of real Ephedra along the road about 5 km beyond Pilcaniyeu. They are putting in a gas pipe line between Pilcaniyeu Viejo and beyond Comallo. We stopped at the cliffs 11.5 km by road south of Comallo, east of the road, a place that I think I called 10km S Comallo in earlier notes. There are no big caves here, but lots of broken rock and small caves that are dry and would seem to be satisfactory for accumulation of amber. Viscacha dropping begin about halfway up the slope from the road to the cliff, and are abundant in places along the bottom of the cliff. In some places they were mixed Phyllotis-sized droppings, but in general not many mouse droppings. In one place there were droppigns, rocks, and a giant Ephedra bush in close proximitiy, but no amber. The slope was very dry, even the Calceolaria were withering. Then drove south another half km to a rocky cavye place to the west of the road, just before the road starts switchbacking up a long grade. No viscachas there, no Phyllotis-sized droppings, although the rocks and caves are pretty good. No Ephedra. We scared an Ibis off her stick nest up on the rock face, A horned owl sat on the cliff and watched us get pretty close, Picked up one new, wet, droppings that seems to have no fur in it. Another dry similar one. Then another horned owl took off from the ground under a rock on the hillside. One of the two eggs rolled out from its nest under this rock and broke when the owl took off. Then drove back about 1 km toward Comallo and climbed up to some more cliffs. Vizcacha droppings but no amber. Anita noticed from up there that there seemed to be Mima mounds on two flat areas, one on each side of the road (the new pipe line is on the west side of the road here. The mounds were in dry dry "pasture" covered with a small dried up annual, and several of them had what appeared to be old tuco burrows on them, as well as other smaller holes. I dug two holes between mounds; the earth was very fine, dry, for the first 1.5 feet, then I hit small rocks, but they were not impenetrable and could be penetrated with some effort. Nearby the road had been ditched and one could see a distinct layer of stones at a depth of about 2 feet. See photo. Then drove up the pipeline road away from the main road and camped overnight. The vegetation is very dry, many sage bushes dead, Cola de Pichi thriving. November 19- In spite of the drought, many mouse footprints in the dust in the morning. Drove back the road toward Comallo about a mile (maybe 10km by road S of Comallo) and found a better display of Mima mounds on the west
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presiding, and 7 "associates" including the Fluecks but Adrian not there. Then to a promotional meeting for initiating a local natural history society. Patricia Fierro, Bleda Bettinelli, and Michael Christie gave natural history talks. Lorenzo Sympson was there; he had gotten for Michael a description of where the cave with amber was located: "Kevin Wesley's camp in Pichi Leufu. Up Pichi Leufu road, past Cooperativo, over bridge past school and farm with alamos (this is far beyond the first school, the bridge is over the Pichi Leufu), up first hill to 1st or 2nd white gate. Name La Taper a." Down road past the keeper's house to the margin of the Pichi Leufu River. Amber is aprox. 1 km down stream on opposite shore up big cliff, at base." November 23- Bariloche. Sunny and warm. Gustavo Iglesias and Nora Unpronounceable came to discuss their research and grant proposals, and last night's meeting. In the afternoon we returned to Mr. Strukely's (sic) house to talk about bamboo flowering and ratadas. He came here in 1938 and married in 1951. He did a lot of guiding on mountain trips, including a group of 50 Sierra Club people to Tronador, Paso de Nubes, Catedral, etc. On some climb which he could not date closer than about 1943, he was above tree line on Tronador, probably near the refugio, in habitat that was pure rocks and volcanic sand and gravel, and the rocks and ground were covered with live rats. A friend of Mrs. Strukely's in the hospital said a ratada in the early fifties, but we don't know where her info came from. Then we went to Andres and Ellen Lamuniere, parents of Chulengo. They lived up at Refugio Jacob in 1950-1951 and described notable quantities of bamboo in bloom and quantities of mice along the trail on the way up to the Refugio. Dead canes stayed in the forest for several years. They also were of the impression that many but not all clumps of bamboo bloomed. They both described the mice as tame and fat, small, short tail, pale color, not dirty. He also described large numbers of "rats" dead on the snow of the ski lifts at Catedral in August of 1968 or 1969. We got the impression that the Lamunieres were reliable observers. They are quite knowledgeable about wild and garden plants. November 24- Bariloche. Warm and sunny. Went to see Mrs. N. Frey de Neumeyer whose father was probably Ingeniero Frey, one of the founders of Bariloche. She mentioned Dr. Venzano and said that she agreed with his observations about bamboo blooming and rat plagues. She thinks that there was scattered flowering of individual bamboos for several years before a massive flowering in 1940. She remembers especially a trail from the head of Brazo Tristeza up to Cerro Capitan. After the bloom the forest was full of dead canes. The snow pushed them over in the first or second winter and made the trail very difficult; it took 8 hours to transit the trail instead of 4. The dead canes lasted for several years. She also saw the ratada at the Refugio on Tronador, probably on the same trip as Mr. Strukely, she
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Pearson-1990 11 Temperature about 40. My traps untouched. Anita caught 2 Eligmodontia, 2 pale Abrothrix (one of them juvenile), and 1 young Akodon xanthorhinus. This locality is about 30 km NNW Pilcaniyeu. About 10:30 decided to continue on north to Paso Flores. The road degenerates in places to barely detectable tracks across mallines and rocky grades, but passable because of the dry weather. Sheep and occasionally goats, numerous juncus mallines, occasional small ranch houses. 23 km beyond our campsite, we met a pickup truck coming the other way; it had gone past our camp earlier in the morning. It contained one (or two?) of the 7 Cueto Brothers, three of whom (Alfredo, Emiliano, and "Otro") own ranches here. Alfredo told us that there was nothing but trobble ahead and that we had better return past his ranch and continue west to reach Paso Flores or Alicura. Lunch at an idyllic spot with a big grove of Lombardy poplars, willows, cottonwoods, elderberry, knee-high green grass, sheep in a big mallin, rocky cliffs...and no habitation. Emerged in late afternoon at the Alicura Dam. Crossed the dam, then back to Bariloche. VERY windy en route, then light rain in the evening in Bariloche. Peter and Sandy investigated various caves and crevices in this transect through the Pichi Leufu drainage, but encountered nothing like amber. Viscacha droppings in various places. At the lunch oasis I found a big bush of the big Ephedra/Diostea with 5-petalled, bent-tubular, corolla, one of the petals with a notch in it. There also was rosa mosqueta there, so possibly the ?Diostea? was introduced. December 2- Bariloche. Clear by morning, temperature low 40s. Gwenn Brewer and Josh and his mother came by. Then went to Rapaport's for lunch with the Flueks. Then up to the University. December 3- Weather clear, very windy. One of the Wesleys is said to have weather records for many years out toward the Llao Llao Peninsula. Peter and Sandy climbed up above Refugio Neumeyer, maybe onto Cerro Blanco, and in some grassy places among patches of lenga achaparrada they fouond and brought back fairly large Euneomys droppings. December 4- To Puerto Blest on the early international boat. The big marked clump by the big tree, east of the road, was blooming! Weather drizzly. Pitched our tent under the picnic/camping shelter. The Park Guard is Javier, same as last year. Peter and I walked the Bl Abuelo route and counted 4 blooming bamboo plants, 2 on each side of the road. Dec. 5- Went to Lago Frias on the bus, up the hill to the beginning of the trail to Puerto Blest, then back that trail for maybe 0.5km where we encountered the other species of bamboo that Parkgurard Prieto had told us about. Weather clear. Heard barn owl at night, a few parrots, 2 condors at Lago Frias, 1 at Blest. Dec. 6-Back to Puerto Panuelo on the early boat because it was beginning to rain again. Abel Basti is Parkguard at the Port. He took us home for yerba
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mate. Says the Park is still shooting deer (3 species) on Isla Victoria and that the vegetation is recuperating nicely. In addition, they still have a few penned pudus, plus some released ones. Also on the island are volumes of handwritten notes on plant introductions back in the thirties: what species they tried, how well they grew, etc. Juliana and Claudio came by after we got back to Bariloche, and Mrs. La Rochet. December 7- Weather clear. Adrian Monjeau came by. He says he has trapped at Refugio Frey in the bunchgrass and lenga achaparrada and caught lots of Abrothrix, several Chelemys, one Geoxus, and 1 Oryzomys. He brought along the contents of a small pellet (or pellets) picked up along the trail from Frey to Punta Princesa; it contained several Auliscomys. We then went out to Llao Llao and ran a census of bamboo canes along a transect in the dense part, beginning near our arked plant on the Auxiliary trail December 8- Had planned to go to Castano Overo but some rain and low barometer, so we went down the Rio Limay to the Valle Encantado and hiked up to a cave visible from the road 4.7km south by road from Confluencia. It is at the base of a rock spire near another striking spire that is probably on the maps as "El Centinela". It is on the Bstancia Siete Condores, but in the "Reserve" portion of the Park. It took better than a half hour to climb up to it; it is about 700 ft. above the river. Very windy on the ridges, and sometimes the surface being blown off of the River. The cave is the size of a large room with a high ceiling, the floor is dry dusty dirt mixed with mouse bones, not at all stratified, no Indian paintings on the walls, although Peter found a human tooth. About 12 feet up on the back wall of the cave was another smaller cave, and in the back of it, dark enough to make a flashlight useful, was about a shoebox full of somewhat compressed mouse droppings fixed firmly to the back wall of the cave about 8 inches above the present floor, which was dusty dry dirt. There was some dark discoloration of the rock around where the mass was fastened. Nearby was another less-compacted mass, also stuck against the wall of the cave and covered with dust. We collected most of these two masses. Access to this upper cave was gained by two cipres trunks that had been propped up against the wall. It is hard to conceive of how mice gained access without the trunks. Possibly the floor of the cave had been much higher once and archeologists have dug it out. There was some fill outside the entrance. There were a couple of places where owls could have perched, including in the upper cave, and we collected various mouse bones that surely had been in pellets once but were now thoroughly dispersed. Saw no really fresh mouse droppings nor cuttings, but assorted reasonably recent mouse droppings were retrieved from various depressions in the rock. Unusually strong gusts of wind brought dust into the cave and blew mouse droppings around. We saw several large cipreses that had been blown over in recent
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samples. Then to the Valle Encantado where we hiked in to the base of the rock spire that we assume to be the one called El Centinela. Looked for caves all around its base. Found one good one, but it was scoured and full of cow manure. No amber, no sheep manure. On the way in, however, we passed a couple of cipreses with branches barked in small patches, as described years ago at our camp on Estancia Alicura in the valley on the north side of the Rio Traful. Seemed fairly recent, and the bases of the trees were drowned in espina negra and other good cover, so Anita put 20 Shermans and 6 steel traps in and at the base of these trees. I climbed up to the other cave and saturated it and the bushes near the entrance with 20 Shermans and 7 steel traps. Three were at the base of the cipres-trunk ladder going up to the upper loft-cave. The cave is in coarse conglomerate rock, a tiny water seep from the wall at the back of the main cave. Domestic-variety honey bees were drinking from this seep. No sheep droppings. Vegetation at the mouth of the cave was: Berberis, bunchgrass, Senecio, a ground herb that I dont know, espina negra (Colletia), Baccharis, mountain neneo (small leaf), a small maiten tree right at the entrance, a dead and fallen cipres right at the entrance and a living cipres 30 yards away, clumps of the blue fragrant flower, calceolaria. No sheep droppings. Took a half hour to come down. Camped on the north side of the Rio Traful at the grove of pines. Michael Christie and friend Patricia found us as we were eating supper. Night mild. December 15- Michael heard Glaucidium owl during the night. Hiked up to the cave with Michael and Patricia. My traps held one big toad, Bufo spinulosa. Nothing even in good sets in thick brush at the mouth of the cave. Anita's traps also caught nothing. It took an hour to climb up to the cave. Michael's altimeter said 710m at the road and 960m at the cave. He says the river at Confluencia is 700m. Stopped at the Boliche at Nahuel Huapi for asado on the way home. Claudio and Juliana visited in the evening. Michael collected assorted bones in the upper loft of the cave: Assuming that they were completely disassociated, the count was 5 small tucos and 1 big tuco (distance across both lower incisors at the tip 6.2mm), 6 Phyllotis, 4 Chelemys, 11 Buneomys (2 have upper incisors with lateral grooves), 5 Auliscomys, 3 Reithrodon, 4 Chelemys. In with them in the film canister were droppings which might have been "loose" or might have broken off of pieces of amber that he collected: mm frequency 5 7 6 11 7 2 8 5
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Pearson-1990 15 One small piece of amber that Michael collected in the loft seems to be better consolidated, less fibrous than the pieces collected the other day. Visited Gallopins and returned his printer. December 16- Bariloche. Warm, calm, sunny. Christmas Choral with Flueks. December 17- Despedidas. Bettinelli says he saw a Buneomys last week right outside of Refugio Frey. It came out from under a rock right next to the house. December 18- To Buenos Aires. Flew right over the middle of Cullin Manzano. A lot of very bare high country there.
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O. P. Pearson 1990 Argentina Species Accounts
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Abrothrix Nov. 3- La Primavera. Specimens caught by Anita above the amber cave and kept until Nov. 4 7 p.m.: 33 g male. testis 11, sv 20; testes, accessories, and penis weigh 2.1 g; testes alone 0.65g. The contents of the seminal vesicles is cheesy when extruded, seems to get a little more rubbery when mixed with minced ?coagulating gland. 36g male. Did not fight with above when put together in a bucket. testis 11, sv 18mm; Unflexed penis is 24 mm long, the distal flexure is 9mm; tetes, accessories and penis together weigh 1.9 g; testes alone weigh 0.6g. 41 g male. Penis 23 mm total, 10mm to the flexure. Testis 10, sv 21. Testes, accessories, and penis weigh 2.5g; vesicular fluid milky, when mixed with coagulting gland became cheesy but not rubbery. Both testes together weigh 0.7g. 34g female. vagina open, nipple small, Rt. horn with 2 fetuses, 12mm bumps, ovary with 8 corpora lutea of different sizes, 4 of them large; left uterus 2 fetuses, left ovary 5 c.l. 34g female. vagina closed, nipple med-large, milk expressible, uteri with 4 scars (2 and 2), ovaries with many CL.,considerable mammary tissue. Entire UG weighs only 0.1g. December 1- 30 km NNW Pilcanyieu (Rio Pichi-Leufu). Caught 2 Abrothrix, one of them a juvenile, the other an adult breeding male which was perfused and the head saved for Noemi de Esperoni.
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Pearson-1990 17 Bamboo October 28- Visited A1 and A2 on Cerro Otto. Of 21 new dead shoots collected from A2, up to 15 inches tall, 18 of them had been parasitized (spiral borings, holes in culm sheaths, and frass). Only eight culms had survived and two of these had parasitized tops. So, of 29 new shoots, 20 had been parasitized. Clump A1 has produced no new shoots in the past 2 years. October 29- Counted leaves again on Cerro Otto. 100 feet east of clump A2 is a culm with two culms that are 35 and 32 mm diameter at 1 meter above ground; biggest I have seen. Note that culms in the center of a large clump are neither bigger nor smaller than those around the periphery. Since most of the new shoots appear around the periphery, the new ones are the same size as old ones. This is not true for brand new clumps in their first few years when each succeeding culm is larger than the one(s) the year before. October 30- On Cerro Otto it appears that the bud complement on culms with a damaged tip contain large central buds. The distance between bamboo clumps A2 and A1 is about 100 m. My analysis of the history of the habitat around A1 is that it was cleared of lenga forest 50 to 75 years ago for grazing and that it was grazed until 2 or 3 years ago, although not heavily. A2 is in second growth lenga; it might have been cleared at the same time as around A1 but was allowed to grow back to lenga. November 1- Llao Llao. At Clump B2 (crossroads) we harvested 5 dead shoots, 4 or more of them parasitized. Then censused the whole clump. There were 11 living yearling culms, 3 of which had parasitized tops. Hence a production of 15 shoots 7 of which had been parasitized. At Clump B1 (back the trail), we harvested 4 dead shoots, all parasitized. The clump had produced only one yearling culm, and it was parasitized at the top. There were 6 new shoots coming up. November 5- Portezuelo, Neuquen. Have finished weighing the rhizomes from the small clump excavated last year Nov. 27. This entire clump consisted of 6 culms with diameters 1m above the ground of: 13.5mm, 9.8, 13.7, 9.9, 11.9, and 8.8. The last was a dead culm and was measured at 8.7 cm above ground level. The rhizomes and rootlets fresh weighed 811 g, of which something like 115g was rootlets. I am a little unsure about whether they had partially dried out by then. A year later, air dried to constant weight, the total weight was 484g of which 108 g was rootlets. These figures are intended to
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broad-leaved bush. In fact, another reason for synchronous blooming would be to avoid having the seedlings compete with well-established adult clumps (which are so dense at our Llao Llao study area). November 28- Along the trail down from Refugio Frey, a few hundred feet above Lago Gutierrez, is a piece of coihue forest with scattered clumps of young bamboo, NO old clumps and no dead clumps. The young clumps have about 5 to 10 small culms each. There must have been a mass blooming maybe 15 years ago? There used to be a saw mill near the bottom of this trail. December 4- Puerto Blest. The big clump on our study grid was in bloom. Not many blooms on any one culm, but about 30 of the culms on the SW side of the clump had a few flowering heads and only a few did not. The rest of the clump was not flowering. There were 2 or 3 new shoots on the northeast side of the clump, but not on the SW side. Seems that this clump is composed of 2 or more plants. Ran the census to El Abuelo with Peter, 2 plants blooming on each side of the road, =4 plants blooming. Anita and Peter measured 3 new shoots at 5 p.m. yesterday afternoon and again at 8 a.m. One of them had grown 3cm overnight; temperature at 8 a.m. about 10 C. December 5- Puerto Blest. Photoed the dead clump at the Post Office (Prefectura) with Sandy and Prefectura sailor Jose. It is still clearly visible (after 12? years). No branches but lots of standing culms, being invaded by raspberries. There is another big clump blooming on the south edge of the camping meadow. Photoed the clump that bloomed about 3 years ago near the camping shelter house. Some new shoots at Blest are more than 1m tall and have drops of liquid at the tips of the culm sheaths. Nearby dead shoots have no such liquid. Also, the drops sometimes are touching without coalescing, hence are not pure water. December 7- To Llao Llao and ran a census from near our marked Auxiliary plant due north for 24 m minus 20cm, and for 1 m on each side of the of the cord. Tallied all live culms over 1 m and all dead culms over 1 m. This is fairly large second growth coihue forest and has a quite dense bamboo stand. December 10- Castano Overo. Both our study clumps were undisturbed. Wild pigs had been rooting up turf along the road, and a few bamboo shoots were lying about, maybe pigs? maybe cows? We measured growth of bamboo shoots for 24 hours. The tallest ones were 1.4m tall. Temperatures ranged from about 60 down to 34 or 36 (see data), mostly below 50, and growth rates were about 1mm per hour. The taller ones grew faster and were still increasing their growth rate. At Puerto Blest we found that they grew considerably overnight.
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Pearson-1990 20 Most of the dead shoots that we looked at had been parasitized. December 11- Transect census at Llao Llao. Lots of new shoots are already over 1 m tall. This census has to be near maximum for Chusquea. Peter found a dead cane that had made a complete loop and then continued growing. A grub had made vertical furrow, and the culm had bent toward the furrow making a loop with the furrow on the inside; the internodes were much shorter in the bent region, then elongated again after the grub had emerged.
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Pearson-1990 21 December 14- Another visit to Llao Llao. Weighed three adult culms adjacent to the study clump at the crossroads: Diam. Total Stripped Remarks at 1m Wt, Wt 10.3 377 297 Still a few culm sheaths present 15.6 725 584 Numerous super-branches (like culms) 18.0 1171 849 Numerous superbranches - 8.5 155 140 The top 3 nodes of this one were dead with no branches. Maybe dont count it.
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Pearson-1990 22 Buneomys November 27- Refugio Frey-Laguna Toncek. At the west end of the lake on the south side of the valley, and along the south side of the lake, is a marshy-grassy habitat with runways and burrows exactly as Michael Christie described for the habitat of Buneomys mordax at Copahue. We found a few old droppings and some old cuttings of the low bush that grows there, but nothing fresh. Some of the runways were probably made under the snow. Five steel traps, 10 Shermans, and 8 Museum Specials overnight caught nothing. Some of the burrows were big enough to put your hand in and would be easy to excavate. The droppings are pale, blunt at both ends, coarse vegetable material; typical "Rice Crispies" of Buneomys. Lengths of a sample were: Length Frequency 7mm 6 8 0 9 4 10 3 Certainly seems to be Buneomys and probably B. mordax as at Copahue.
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Pearson-1990 23 Phyllotis November 11- Caught 2 very big ones at the bottom of a cliff 12km by road N bridge over the Rio Pichi Leufu. Saved both in captivity. In the traps when we got home they smelled fruity, like Concord grapes, not especially like amber. One is a male, tail slipped while handling; the other a late pregnant female. Put into separate cages with samples of Ephedra, Senecio, and calafate. The droppings produced in the trap overnight and on the way home were very dark, fine grained, tapered somewhat at both ends but usually more so at one end than at the other. The size distribution was: Length in mm. Frequency 4 2 5 5 6 5 mean 6.5 7 3 8 4 9 3 November 12- Measured scats from a loosely consolidated piece of amber from the cave at Primavera: Length in mm. Frequency 3 1 4 11 5 24 6 30 mean 5.7 7 11 8 6 9 1 It would seem that we are dealing with a single distribution in the cave sample, and its size is consistent with that of Phyllotis. The shape is consistent also, numerous but not all pellets are pointed at one end. Overnight, both captives were left with a small amount of rolled oats and a small piece of apple. They both ate some but not all of the apple, and little if any of the oats. Neither captive ate Senecio or Berberis. The female cut a branch or two of the giant Ephedra (check identification) but does not seem to have eaten much of it, if any. She dismembered the twigs of cipres, but didn't de-bark the pencil-sized stem. The male seems to have eaten lots of Ephedra- only a few short lengths left. He did not de-bark the larger branchlets of cipres (4mm diam.), but cut off the terminal twigs and chewed up a lot of the smaller sections of stem, perhaps 2 to 3mm diam. November 13- The female ate rolled oats when she first came out last night. Overnight she cut a few lengths of Ephedra, 1 to 2 inches long, but doesnt seem to have debarked any. She made a nest of sorts out of some cipres
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branches, but not shredded or even cut up finely. Ate considerable oats, some apple. The male cut up much of his Ephedra into lengths of 1 to 2 inches, did not seem to do much to the cipres sprays, ate some apple and oats. November 14- Put the male in a wire-floored plastic cage with apple, Ephedra, cipres, and bread, overnight. He ate all the bread and apple, and cut the ephedra into 0.5-3-inch lengths but did not eat the tender buds on the ends of the branches. The cipres he cut into smaller pieces but did not shred any of it. Collected a half of a small nunc tube of urine from the floor of the cage (Sample No. 1). It was not particularly viscous, slightly pink, smelled like mouse urine, not grapes. There were 4 drops of blood on the floor of the cage, probably from his skinned tail, which has not dropped off yet. and may have caused the pink color of the urine collected. Produced 62 droppings overnight: 10pm to 8 am. The female gave birth yesterday afternoon, at least two young, some squeaking. Overnight she ate some apple but no bread, and pulled the Ephedra and cipres over her nest but does not seem to have eaten any of them. When I cleaned the male's cage and returned him to it, he wet the newspaper promptly- so fast that the urine could not have been viscous. November 15- The female came out and ate bread and apple in preference to cipres and rolled oats. No shredding of cipres in either cage. November 19- No eating of the giant ephedra (probably was Diostea). November 20- Brought home some of the small Ephedra andina from about 5 miles beyond Pilcaniheu and from the canyon of La Fragua. Mostly heavily pruned but containing lots of female buds. Put the male in the urine-collection cage with apple, bread, and Ephedra andina. In the morning I collected from the bottom of the cage two small nunc tubes of urine (almost clear, quite runny, smells mousey, = 2 ml), about 50 cut-off buds, a few lengths of Ephedra stem, and 96 droppings (a few of them quite small, about Mus size). Most of the buds had been opened and the pair of pistils or seeds removed. They are juicy and about 3.5 mm long. One that had not been removed from the dense cluster contained a grub. Some of the buds still had one or both seeds in them; perhaps they fell through the wire floor before he could open them. The female and nursing young, like the male, had apple and bread, She cut off most of the buds and ate the two seed halves. Sometimes the seeds were hollowed out as though she went for the germ (endosperm?). These were Ephedra andina. The giant ephedra brought back from beyond Comallo looks remarkably like a big Ephedra andina, but the buds have 3 seeds in them instead of two. Maybe Retamilla ephedra? Put the night's collection of droppings in a petri dish and soaked
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Pearson-1990 26 Brion up at the University. She thought the little one was Ephedra frustillata. Maybe this is a synonym of E. andina? The big one she didnt even guess at and said there are 3 species of Ephedra in Patagonis, 7 in Argentina. Eddie had passed on my suggestion that it might be Retamilla as in Hoffman's Chile book, but she didnt comment on that. Suggested Donald Bran at INTA or the Instituto Darwininano in BA. November 30- Left in the female's cage the soft core of a fresh bamboo shoot. In the morning, she or the young had nibbled only a couple of small samples of it. December 16- Left the male overnight with newly gathered male Ephedra in bloom, female Ephedra in bloom, non blooming Ephedra with long tender shoots, and cipres from Valle Encantado with debarked patches. Also a piece of pound cake, but no water or apple. He ate lots of male and female blossoms, cut numerous pieces of their stems, but did not touch the Ephedra with the long tender shoots and did not seem to eat any of the cipres. December 17- Left male overnight with very small piece of apple, small piece of bread, and male and female ephedra, in urine cage with wire floor. He ate apple, some of the bread, and demolished the Ephedra (buds nibbled open, branches cut into 1-inch lengths). No urine on the floor of the cage, about 0.5ml in the bladder, not viscous. He weighed 86g. 57 droppings.
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O. P. Pearson 1990 Argentina Index
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Pearson-1990 27 Index - 1990 Abrothrix 12,17 Akodon xantho 7 Amancay 8 Amberat 2,3,11,13,14 Ants 2 Auliscomys 12 Bamboo 1,7,8,9,11,16-19,17ab, Basti 11 Bats 1,5 Boars 12 Bufo 13 Castano Overo 12 Cerro Lopez 9 Cerro Otto 1,2,10,17a,b Chalhuaco 11 Cipres 12,13 Climate 1,4,5,7 Comallo 5,6,6a-6e Condor 1,9,11,12 Confluencia 3,8 Cuera Traful la Dolichotis 5 Doves 1 El Centinela 11 Eligmodontia 7 Endangered spp. 5 Ephedra 4,5,8 Estacion Perito Moreno 7 Euneomys 4,9,11,12,14,20,9a,b Gunnera 3 Hares 1,3,4,7,9 Ibis 6 Irenomys 7,12 La Fragua 6 Lago Frias 11 Laguna Los Juncos 1 Lamuniere 8 La Primavera 2,3,3a Lapwings 2 La Veranada 4 Lenga 2 Lestodelphys 4 Limay 11 Llama 5 Llaollao 1,2,5,9,11,12,13 Marful 1 Mima Mounds 6,6a-6e Neumeyer (Sra) 8 Nire 3 Oryzomys 8 Owls 2,6,7,8,11,13 Palo pichi 7 Parrots 1,2,5,9,11,12 Phyllotis 4,6,7,12,21-25 Pichi Leufu 4,19,4a,10a Pigs 12 Primavera (see La Primavera) Puerto Blest 11,19ab Refugio Frey 9,11,14 Reithrodon 1,10 Rio Traful 13 Santa Cruz 13 SAREM 1 Strukely 7 Taylor 1 tuco 10 Valle Encantado 11,13,13a,b Viscacha 3,4,6,10 White grubs 12
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O. P. Pearson 1991 Argentina Catalogue #7866-7893
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Pearson 1991 CATALOG 13 km S Epuyen, Prov. Chubut, Argentina November 8 7866 M Auliscomy s micropus 238 103 29 20 59g testis 8mm, SV 10mm 7867 F Abrothrix longipilis 162 68 23 16 30g Parous with corpora lutea. 7868 M Abrothrix longipilis 180 68 25 15 45g Testis 12mm 7869 M Abrothrix longipilis 177 69 24 15 40g Testis 11mm Cerro Medio, 1600m, 35km WNW 25 de Mayo, Prov. Mendoza November 23 7870 F Ctenomys 213 63 31 6 140g 3 fetuses 7871 M Ctenomys 245 73 35 6 168g testis 15mm 24 km WNW 25 de Mayo, 1200 m, Prov. Mendoza November 24 7872 M Bligmodontia 190 101 23 18 20g testis 6mm 7873 M Bligmodontia 178 93 21 17 17g testis 6mm Cerro Medio, 1600m, 35 km WNW 25 de Mayo, Prov. Mendoza November 24 7874 F Phyllotis xanthopygus 240 121 27 27 52g parous 7875 M Phyllotis xanthopygus 261 140 29 27 73g testis 13mm Fort San Rafael, 25 de Mayo, Prov. Mendoza November 25 7876 F Ctenomys 231 75 30 6 120g post-partum 7877 M Ctenomys 190 55 28 5 68g testis 4mm
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Pearson 1991 2 Cerro Chihuido, 20 km S Malargue, Prov. Mendoza November 26 7878 Amphisbaenid snake DOR, formalin. Steep rocky slope in monte desert. Cueva de la Luna, 12 km S Bardas Blancas, Prov. Mendoza November 26 7879 Ctenomys mendocinus Found in cave. No other small mammals skull only 1 km W Chos Malal, Prov. Neuquen November 28 7880 Ctenomys emiliae 253 88 40 6 202g lactating, 4 fetal sites Paso Puyehue, 1314 m, 32 km WNW Villa La Angostura, Prov. Neuquen November 16 7881 Auliscomys micropus In owl pellet, picked up at the pass 200 m from the Chilean border. Rio Collon Cura, 10 km N Bridge, Prov. Neuquen November 29 7883 Dusicyon griseus DOR skull only Cerro Otto, 1200 m, Bariloche, Prov. Rio Negro December 3 7884 F Ctenomys mendocinus 240 70 36 6 142g. 2 fetuses 24mm CR Sent to Rosi at IADIZA
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Pearson 1991 3 Llao Llao Peninsula, Prov. Rio Negro December 5 7885 M Abrothrix longipilis 191 78 25 16 41g testis 11mm formalin 7886 M Abrothrix longipilis 195 79 23 16 45g testis 12mm formalin 7887 F Abrothrix longipilis 190 77 25 16 44g 5 fetuses formalin 7888 F Abrothrix longipilis 200 80 25 16 45g 5 fetuses formalin 7889 F Abrothrix longipilis 195 76 25 16 43g 3 bump embryos, large corpora lutea. Lago Guillelmo, 34 km SSE Bariloche, Prov. Rio Negro December 9 7890 F Ctenomys mendocinus 250 68 35 6 220g 3 fetuses 40mm CR (sum wt. skull only 35g). Sent to Rosi at IADIZA 7891 F Ctenomys mendocinus 260 76 37 6 210g Lactating, 2 sites Cerro Otto, 1200 m, Bariloche, Prov. Rio Negro December 11 7892 M Ctenomys mendocinus 247 73 36 6 188g Testis 7mm. Fur eaten by skull only lice. Sent to Rosi at IADIZA. 5 km E Comallo, Prov. Rio Negro Date? 7893 Myotis mummy Captured in rock crevice by Michael Christie; escaped in freezer. Donated by MIC.
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O. P. Pearson 1991 Argentina Journal
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JOURNAL October 18.- Bariloche. Tulips blooming, a few fruit trees blooming. Lots of snow on the mountains. Went to a S.N.A.P. meeting in the evening: a lecture by German Prof. Hermann Ellenberg on Capreolus deer. Michael translated, Betinellis, Lawrence Sympson, Fluecks, Ramilo, Chehebar, Bellatis, and Gustavo Iglesias were there. October 19- Left Bariloche about 2:30 and drove to the two bamboo clumps at La Veranada. The road is enormously wide but still unpaved; no way to get off of it anywhere near our bamboo and mouse study area. Photographed E3 and E2, and samples of branches of different known age from E3. The nire is not at all in leaf yet, nor the lenga. Excavated some rhizomes next to E2. Day mostly sunny but filtered. Drove over the pass and down to Pampa de Toros, then back the Lago Steffen road to camp in a meadow. Evening clear, no wind. Put the propane lantern and a sheet in a nire grove with bamboo, but absolutely nothing came to it. October 20.- Night started out clear, then clouded over. Frost. Drove back up to the Veranada bamboo plants and dug rhizomes and photoed rhizomes with known-age culms; looks as if production of culms is every other year, and the culm and its rhizome grow at the same time. Even dead shoots nly a foot tall can have a sizeable rhizome, hence the long-term effect of a parasite killing a rhizome is not great because the rhizome has grown and will produce more shoots in the future. There were numerous earth cores lying on the turf, too small to be from tuco-tucos, a bit small for Chelems and too large for Geoxus. Stopped at the south end of Lago Guillermo on the way home. A few dandelions blooming, a few calafate bushes in full bloom. Home about 3 p.m. altitudes: Pampa del Toro 3180 ft, Pass 3600, La Veranada bamboo 3530, apartment 2720 ft. October 21- Bariloche. Visits from Blida Bettinelli: spring is late this year; Michael Christie: there was rain out into the steppe, and Lago de los Juncos is partly full; Adrian Monjeau with birthday cake: 200 trap nights on Isla Huemul in Lake Nahuel Huapi caught only Rattus norvegicus. Read leaves from La Veranada bamboo. October 22- Drove out to Llao Llao Peninsula and visited our two bamboo patches there. No new shoots yet. More than half last year's shoots were parasitized. Dug rhizomes, photoed clump B1. Saw quintral in bloom. October 23- Went trapping with Adrian Monjeau and his student Nadia Gutmann at their 1-hectare grid on Estancia Condor on the road to the airport. Mostly bunchgrass with scattered rosa mosqueta, some Acaena etc. Some old tuco tuco activity on the grid. They use 10m spacing, check traps once per 24 hrs., 4 days of trapping each month. Day was sunny warm, no wind. The catch was
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Pearson - 1991 2 Mus, 2 Bligmodontia, 5 Akodon xanthorhinus. One xantho was dead, one unmarked, all the others marked. The catch is about a fifth of what it was last winter. Population dropped sharply after a deep snow followed by rain. The nearest (and only) house nearby is about 100 m away. A big, dead, grey cat was lying dead just off the grid, about 40 ft. from the airport road. October 24.- Up to Cerro Otto to our bamboo clumps. The lenga at that level was leafing out. Day sunny and warm. Lots of earth cores; a few drifts of snow still. Dug up an entire, isolated clump of bamboo near A2. It consists of 18 culms ranging from less than 3 mm diameter at ground level to 20mm in a graded series. It will be known as the Dead Sea Clump; see bamboo species account. From Cerro Otto we could see a strange cloud of smoke or dust over the Rio Limay at the east end of the Lake. People say that it was a result of an explosion of Volcan Hudson down south in August. It spread a few cms to 1 m of ash over Santa Cruz and/or Chubut, which killed thousands of sheep that were already in bad shape because of 5 years of drought. Some say the ash got into the wool weighed the sheep down so much that they perished. Certain wind conditions still stir up the dust, and this is what we were seeing. The airport at Viedma was closed today because of blowing ash. Werner and Joanna Flueck came for yerba mate, then Bettinellis. October 25.- Bariloche. Sunny and warm. Bettinellis for mate, then to Flueck's for dinner in their house near the top of Palacios Street. He is trying for a faculty position at the University. They are sort of surveying where the deer are. They say that the deer on Peninsula Huemul and Fortin Chacabuco have become so small that they are not attracting hunters. The deer on Estancia San Ramon are still large. A group of Germans at Esquel/El Bolson is promoting reforestation with native trees. Another German project is at INTA here in Bariloche, on Desertification of Patagonia. They have the latest in sattelite imagery analysis already installed here. Flueck says that they found a huemul horn on Peninsula Huemul recently, and that it appeared to be not more than a year or two dead. October 26.- Bariloche. Warm and sunny, no wind. Went up Cerro Otto again. Dug up another small clump of bamboo on the ski slope that had been cut in 1985-86. This clump did not have big old rhizomes as expected, but seemed to have come from a seed about like the Dead Sea Clump. Some others dug up with big old cut culms had big rhizomes etc. as expected. Another excavation was of a single yearling culm, all by itself. A big fist-sized tuco burrow went through the soft fluffy soil right past it. All of the big roots, buds, and most of the rhizome had been eaten off of it. There was no trace of any other roots, rhizomes, or shoots. October 28.- Bariloche. Morning partly overcast but warm. Met Peter Symson on
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Pearson - 1991 the sidewalk. He has retired from Estancia Chacabuco and is a consultant on deer management. His son runs the Estancia. He says that in spite of this winter's rain, the forage is still in very poor condition. Went to the Llao Llao peninsula in the afternoon and worked on the bamboo. Saw no doves or parrots; heard lots of chuaos and the little Rhynocryptid. Rained fairly hard on the way home. October 29. Bariloche. Abel Basti came by. He no longer works for Parques, but together with Contreras and Belesky has organized a Park Guard Association to promote conservation, ecology, etc. with a connection with University of Patagonia, which is located at the Aetna Springs-like center on the road to Lago Gutierrez. He says that Miguel Pellerano is now president of Vida Silvestre, wears a necktie, and is overweight. The head of Parques has no knowledge of biology, and the local Intendente is a military appointee (Garay). Visited Michael Christie in his office. He gave us a specimen of quila bamboo in flower, from Hotel Puyehue in Chile. It contained no seeds. Then walked up near the University and visited the Douglas Fir grove where I trapped years ago with Felipe Valverde and his students. Some of the firs have now been harvested. The stumps were about 15 inches in diameter, 30 growth rings. Werner Flueck came by to arrange for us to have his package forwarded to Montana from Orinda so that Wendy Lewis can bring it to Bariloche. October 30. Bariloche. Sunny and warm, up to 80*. Adrian Monjeau came by with some skulls from Laguna Blanca to identify (Phyllotis and Reithrodon). Then Gustavo Iglesias to arrange for a lecture at S.N.A.P. He (they) want to arrange an international symposium on biogeography of Patagonia. October 31. Day mostly overcast. Drove to Castano Overo. Berberis darwini in full bloom, also B. linearifolia and lots of B. buxifolia, slightly perfumed. The road to Pampa Linda about as usual, the road back to the Rio Castano Overo awful, as usual. Had flat tire, got stuck once, and did some road building. Our traditional campsite in the grove of trees by the river was a disaster area. Last year's flood washed out much of the turf, and further flooding has left the whole area a boulder field with river channels through it, numerous of the Nothofagus dead, and a lot of bamboo death. Saw a flock of a dozen parrots at the campsite, one hare at Pampa Linda. Puttered with bamboo Clump F1 along the road. A big steer was standing at the bottom of the cut just under it, but it is almost ungrazed. The nire leave are out, but fresh. Lantern in tent attracted no moths or other insects. Nov. 1.- Rio Castano Overo. Night mild, morning with filtered sun, then clouded up in the afternoon. Worked on clump F2 in the bosque mixto. It was ungrazed, had a big Berberis linearifolia in full bloom in the middle of the clump. 3 species of Berberis within 2 ft. of the clump, and a fourth
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(percei) not far away. There were 3 dead shoots, 2 of them parasitized. Traced rhizomes and found two yearling culms that were coming off of rhizomes that had produced a marked yearling last year. Hence they can produce culms two years in a row. Returned to the F2 area to photograph at mid-day. Heard parrots in the late afternoon, and saw two condors up in the cliff above camp- as in previous years. In the morning, Phrygilus patagonicus and fio fios were feeding at sap oozing out of a Nothofagus dombeyi just behind the tent. No insects were flying there, but couldn't really see what was being eaten. Several years ago we had seen a hummingbird feeding at sap only 50 yards from here. Nov. 2.- Castano Overo. Rained all night, let up about 8 a.m. Gathered bamboo branches from F1, then started out the road. Got stuck on the first hill, but fortunately the jeep that went in yesterday with three climbers was coming out just behind us. They helped us up the grade, then we got stuck again on the second grade, and so did the jeep. We dug it out, then it helped tow us up the slope. Carlos Grey, km 6 of the Faldeo, plus two young men. Then dissected bamboo and wrote notes near Pampa Linda. Off and on sprinkles. Dozens of grey headed geese in the fields at Pampa Linda, plus one hare. The geese later replaced by a dozen ibises. Screaming lapwings present throughout. Much Berberis buxifolia in bloom. About a half-mile west of Pampa Linda a sign and road point off to the south to a Cascada, which is visible in the distance. The road, however, soon disappears into one of several branches of the Rio Manso and a braided river bed of boulders. Geologic re-arrangement must have been due mostly to last year's storm. Makes you realize that geologic erosion is not a day-by-day wearing down but an occasional catastrophic event. Battery was dead when we were ready to come home. Flagged down help to push. Much drier at the eastern end of the road, even dust in the road. Never did see the top of Tronador. Home at 7 p.m. November 3.- Bariloche. Mostly sunny. Puttered around town. November 5. Visited INTA in the morning. Bonino is back from Costa Rica, having done a thesis on pocket gophers in Costa Rica, from sea level to the volcanoes. He is now involved with a study of rabbits (they are down as far as Alumine), with raising rheas in captivity for commercial purposes, and with harvesting of guanacos, for wool and meat and sport. I asked him about his Notiomys edwardsi from Somuncura. He caught only one, and it was from near Laguna de Valeria, about 110 kms from Valcheta. He caught it December 15, 1983. Javier Bellati is doing a survey of game animals of Rio Negro by way of interviews of a couple of hundred ranchers: abundance more, less, or same as a couple of years ago. The survey covers hares, red fox, grey fox, puma, wildcats, eagles, tinamous, mink, maras, etc. He showed me the maps, color coded for more/less/same. Mink does not seem to have
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spread very far yet. There is little agreement among ranchers; rarely did more than 50% of them agree on increase or decrease of a species. One of the agreements was that red foxes had increased. Bellati repeated that large pieces of Santa Cruz Province had been abandoned because of the drought. He also introduced me to one of the Germans running the Desertification of Patagonia Project- sophisticated computer equipment for digitized NOAA images of the steppe. Cloudy in morning, then clear and breezy. Left for El Bolson about 3 o'clock. Major road work south of Pampa del Toro. Camped along the Rio Foyel above the bridge. Anita put out 10 Sher mans. November 6.- Night mostly clear, cold. Anita's traps caught 3 adult Abrothrix and one adult Oryzomys. Then drove to El Bolson. A lot of scrubby nire country, and a lot of it planted to pines. Several large burns also. A man plowing near El Hoyo was being followed by many lapwings, ibises, and chimangos. A few wet pastures were solid buttercups. Then south to Cholila. A few kms south of where the Cholila gravel road branches off of the paved road, about 13 km south of Lago Epuyen, the vegetation along the road is pure Colletia and old old bushes of palo pichi. Much bare ground; real desert, not burned for many years. A few Acaena, no bunchgrass, a couple of berberis bushes and a ground mat with yellow flowers. There were tuco diggings under some of the Colletia bushes, some hare droppings. A fox dropping contained a jaw of ?Buneomys? or Auliscomys?. Cholila is a nothing town. We passed acres and acres of pure dandelion, and miles of rosa mosqueta. 30 or 40 flamingos in a grassy pond southwest of Cholila on our way to Parque Nacional Los Alceres. Drove along Lago Rivadavia and camped on the edge of Lago Verde. Began to rain about 7 p.m. November 7.- Only sprinkles overnight. Anita's traps around rosa mosqueta and radial caught 2 adult Abrothrix and 2 adult Oryzomys. Then drove along Lago Verde and Lago Futulaufquen. . The Berberis darwinii is in full bloom and each plant has 3 times as many blossoms as the Berberis around Pampa Linda and Bariloche. The forests along the road on the east side of the lakes are pretty scrubby, with much retamo, radial etc., whereas those across the lakes look big and dense; dombeyi low down, then a big gap filled with dense bamboo, then solid lenga. Picniced at the east end of Lago Futulaufquen. They now have outhouses at the campsites! Stopped at the Park Intendente's and asked where were the alceres. They called the park guard who said that they had one planted just outside the building. It was 15 ft. tall. Otherwise, you have to sign up with a tour group in Esquel who will bus you to Lago Verde, then launch across Lake Menendez to a place where there are some alceres trees. Discovered a nice little museum at the park headquarters. The curator was happy to show us around. He was a 65-year-old who had known Don Diego
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Pearson - 1991 Neil. He remembered the 1939-40 bamboo bloom. He says that Neil was right there at Futulaufquen at the time, not at Lago Puelo as we had understood. He aid that it was a massive bloom, that there were mice everywhere, of two kinds, short tail and long tail. He dug a pit in the back yard and mice fell in and devoured eachother. Eventually big trout in the lake died, presumably the water was polluted by dead mice. He said the first settlers came over from Chile about 1905 and did a lot of burning, and that this accounts for the scrubby forest on the east side of the lakes. Then drove to Esquel, had lunch, and visited a Municipal Museum with some good Indian exhibits. When I knocked on the door and asked what were the hours for the public, the curator, Sr. Alberti, turned on the lights and said come in. He was baby-sitting a 1 1/2 year-old who played noisily with artifacts etc while the father gave us a fascinating archeological/anthropological tour of the exhibits. Apparently the Indians, before the horse, hunted guanacos by encircling and driving them, then killing them with bolas, arrows, and lances. Then had tea with Charlie and Nora MacKinnon. The four big English-company estancias, Leleque, El Maiten, Pilcaniyeu, and Chacabuco, that were sold to Argentines a number of years ago, have now been sold to an Italian, Benneton. Then drove via long gravel-road detour, to the desert patch on the Cholila road. At dusk Anita put out 10 Sher mans, and I put out 12 cage traps and 8 steel traps. Mostly cloudy. November 8.- 13 km. S Epuyen, Prov. Chubut. Night warm, moths flying, cleared up. My traps had 5 Abrothrix and 1 Auliscomys. Anita's had 1 Abrothrix. Lots of hare tracks but only a few hare droppings. Occasional tuco burrows, and in a few places a trail of mouse footprints crossing from one clump of Colletia to another; probably Auliscomys. This patch of desert habitat, only a couple of kms along the road, seems to be in a rain shadow of the Cordon de Cholila. Probably 50% bare sandy gavel light soil, deep, with patches of palo pichi and Colletia, numerous Acaena and a yellow-flowered ground mat. Occasional Berberis buxifolia, some of them huge with trunks 4 or more inches in diameter. Some of the Palo pichi up to 6 inches diam., many of them dead or dying. The place obviously has not burned for decades. Occasional individual bunches of bunch grass, a few "yarrow", a few 8-petaled "buttercups". Scattered radial trees at the edges of the desert patch. No droppings of horse, cow, or sheep, so not grazed for years. Altitude 2270 ft. Then drove north through the moonscape of bulldozing on the road. Stopped at La Veranada and excavated rhizomes to weigh, Then home to Bariloche. I am impressed with how much forest must have burned in the past (and
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Pearson - 1991 November 16.- Left about 2 p.m. for Chile via Paso Puyehue. About 15 km of the road is still awful. About a half hour to get through the Argentine emigration and aduana, and 15 minutes for Chile. The Chilean aduana took away two specimens of bamboo that we had picked, in Chile, only a couple of kms up the road. Some patches of snow along the road near the summit. We stopped at the summit just before the Chilean border, where the habitat looked right for Buneomys mordax: frost-heaved ground, long, dead grass, low bushy ground cover. I found a few faint runways with a couple of Buneomys or Reithrodon droppings in them, plus a few open burrows. Hare droppings. A carnivore dropping had hare bones in it, and an owl pellet contained an Auliscomys. The road map says 1308 m altitude. There are patches of lenga right at the top, not just lenga achaparada. The bamboo doesn't get to the top. Then sampled bamboo on the way down the Chilean side, and passed through a massive flowering of the quila bamboo q.v. The Chilean farmland looked so lush compared with the Argentine side. Arrived Osorno 9 p.m. November 17.- Cloudy or drizzly all day. Drove to Valdivia and tried to locate Milton Gallardo (Sunday), but no success. Lunch on the river front, then drove north to Victoria where we checked into a motel. Between Osorno and Temuco saw lots of quila bamboo but none of it blooming. Also smaller amounts of culeou-like bamboo, none blooming. North of Temuco the quila disappears. Notro (Bmbothrium) is bigger and lusher than in the Bariloche region. One specimen along the street in Osorno had a trunk more than 10 inches DBH. Lush Scotch broom in a few regions. Very little rosa mosqueta, and most of that was north of Temuco. Big fields of planted mustard in bloom. Lots of saw mills along the road: pines, eucalyptus, and natives; saw-logs for lumber, shorter ones (for pulp? or posts?, and fire wood. Paved road all day! Lots of traffic. November 18.- Chile, Victoria to Los Andes. Early morning foggy, then sunny and warm. There was a big couleou-type bamboo behind the motel at Victoria, but we saw hardly any after that. The road was lined for a stretch by very aggressive acacias, and also by pea chaparral. Lots of pine and fir plantations, some in their second cycle. One young eucalyptus plantation of several hundred hectares. The vegetation gradually gets drier. At the Rio Bio Bio the first tile roofs appear and things look more Spanish than farther south. Lots of small lumber mills, lots of fancy new fruit packing plants. Lots of vinyards, some rice. Drove through Santiago and stopped at 8 p.m. along the Rio Aconcagua a little beyond Los Andes. We have not seen a single squashed hare or rabbit in 3 days of driving in Chile. Chimangos all the way; one kite today. November 19.- Los Andes to Mendoza. Left Los Andes about 8:30. Much like going
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Pearson - 1991 up the Rimac Valley in Peru beginning at Chosica: Cereus cactus and shrubs. Very little grazing on the way up but numerous little chacras with alfalfa or walnuts or fruits. Pretty barren by the time we got to 5.6 km of zigzag road below the ski resort at Portillo at 10:30. This is at the bottom of a long long ski lift that ends up at the resort. Stopped there and snooped around a flat on the south side of the road: broken rock somewhat messed up by bulldozing, a small very prickly aromatic Berberis with small narrow leaves, a Chuquiraga-like small bush, a composite, and a lupine-like plant. There was much digging and bocas like tuco-tuco but the mouths open. Hystriomorph-like droppings, some with longitudinal slits. There seemed to be a colony of the animals covering a couple of hectares. Got good looks at several of the animals, even 3 visible at one time all within 5 yards of echother. They excavate like a tuco-tuco, with spurts of earth coming out of the hole, then the animal appears. This animal was black, had white incisors, ears much more conspicuous than those of Ctenomys, tail about like Ctenomys. When they stood up in the mouth of the burrow, like picket-pin ground squirrels, they clearly had a head and neck, unlike Ctenomys. I set three traps in burrows being actively excavated, but after a half hour the animals had not returned to the openings. I think Ctenomys would have returned to close the burrow opening, but this animal doesn't close the opening! We heard no vocalization from them. I think they must have been Spalacopus, although possibly Aconaemys sageii. The latter less likely because of the tuco-like digging procedure. I tried digging one out, but it was too rocky. At the same place were numerous droppings of Buneomys, the right size for the small species, chinchilloides. Then passed through the long tunnel to the Argentine side and dropped down past Las Cuevas but before Puente del Inca where we went north on a side road to Parque Aconcagua and had lunch with a fine view of Aconcagua but overlooking a marshy meadow littered with building materials, a wind-powered generator, metal drums, and other abandoned equipment from some climbing expedition, apparently Brazilian. A little farther down we stopped and snooped on a rocky slope among small Berberis, Acaena, and ?lupine? This had all been under snow recently. Lots of small Buneomys droppings. Lots of hare droppings. No sheep or cow, a little old horse sign. About 1 1/2 hours to clear Chilean and Argentine borders. Then went on down the valley, which is so much barer than on the Chilean side. But the mountains are spectacularly varied in color, much like the Humahuaca Valley in Jujuy. Except for the town of Upsallata there is almost nobody between the frontier or Los Penitentes until beyond Potrerillos. Probably no more people than when Darwin crossed. November 20.- Mendoza. Attended Annual Meeting of SARBM, the Argentine mammal
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San Rafael was on the most frequently used route to Chile in those days; more traffic than farther north. An Italian biologist, Pelegrino Strobel also came through San Rafael. No hares or other animals squashed on the road between Mendoza and San Rafael. All agree that this spring has seen more than usual number of electrical storms, rain, and wind. November 23.- Drove with Lagiglia to 25 de Mayo, where he showed us the fort, then continued west on the paved road toward Dique Agua del Toro. This road is paved and goes through lush monte desert with a striking diversity of shrubs, many of them in bloom. We made numerous stops to dash through the scrub looking for tuco diggings, cacti, etc. Old tuco sign, nothing fresh. I saw one mouse but it escaped. Ended up just beyond Cerro Medio on the Loma de Pedernal. Soaring quite low over the road at Cerro Medio was a mixed flock of condors, vultures, and Gerroneutes? (buzzrd eagle). Two dead horses near the road. There was practically no human presence along this route except for a few stray horses and cows. Toward the western end of this transect was a good display of blooming Grindelia chilensis (with larvae in the roots). Saw one flock of about 7 Martineta tinamous crossing the road. The last several kms changes abruptly to Stipa bunchgrass and very few bushes. There has been fire not many years ago, however. We saw three fresh tuco diggings along the road and left traps at them, then set mouse traps in rocky habitat up on Cerro Medio and an adjacent slope. Anita put out 20 traps and I put out 14, a mix of big Sherman, Museum Specials, and steel traps. We both saw lots of guinea pig droppings, and I saw one accumulation of what seemed to be big Buneomys droppings. The plants up on the rocky hill were things like Calceolaria, Neneo, Duraznillo, Ephedra, and Stipa, plants common in the Bartiloche area and totally different from the flora in the deep light soil at the bottom of the hill. But there didn't seem to be any place for a mouse to hide in the flat bunchgrass habitat. This locality is 35 km WNW 25 de Mayo, about 1600 m. Then checked the tuco traps: 2 captures. They look like pale Ctenomys mendocinus. Then drove 10.7 km back toward 25 de Mayo and set traps in monte desert, Anita set 18 traps and I set 22. Very diverse monte habitat, but little sign of mice. (Lagiglia says there are 4 species of Larrea here). No tuco sign. November 24.- Night cold. Started out overcast, but clear in morning. Anita's traps in the monte had 2 Eligmodontia; mine caught nothing. Then went back up the road and ran the traps in the rocky habitat on Cerro Medio. Anita's line had 1 skunk; my line had 2 Phyllotis darwini. No sign of guinea pigs other then the droppings. A long stretch of snowcapped Sierra was clear to the east. Then drove back toward 25 de Mayo. Saw 1 armadillo and a pair
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Pearson - 1991 of grey foxes. Also a flicker. Then drove to various Diques looking for Abrothrix/Chelemys habitat. Black-necked swans on one of them. Never got to any good habitat on the road back to Presa Los Reynos but parked under a pepper tree and skinned. Then to Presa El Tigre and found some fairly mesic habitat near the river, with pampa grass, but it didn't look any better than close to Fort San Rafael itself, so drove to the Fort again. Saw scissor-tailed flycatcher nearby and lapwings, and heard horneros, so a considerable pampa element. Put out 3 tuco traps, and three lines apiece in the habitat between Fort San Rafael and the river (which is essentially dry because the dam upstream diverts the last of the flow into an irrigation canal). We each had three lines through pampa grass, assorted bushes, weeds and grass. Light sandy soil mixed with river rocks. Anita's 3 lines totalled 28 traps and mine totalled 35 traps. Anita found a few droppings that looked like guinea pig. Then drove a couple of miles east of town and camped in the monte desert. Partly cloudy. November 25.- Night partly cloudy. Our traplines were untouched, except the tuco traps caught one tuco and one big toad. Set 6 more tuco traps, then skinned etc. until about 10:30 when we picked up the tuco traps: 1 more tuco, a baby. The soil in the tuco areas is light sand with scattered river stones, but in other places there are too many stones for tucos. Lunch in 25 de Mayo, then to the Museum in San Rafael where they let us stay in one of the guest rooms. The electricity was off, so the exhibits were hard to see. The staff artist, Francisco Mora (Pancho) showed us around. Dr. Lagiglia showed up at about seven and showed me some small mammal specimens and some material from Cueva del Indio on the road to Valle Grande at 600m. Included was a Reithrodon skull and lots of Thylamys (Marmosa). He calls Ctenomys "Tunduque". November 26.- San Rafael. Worked in the Museum in the morning, identifying skull fragments from owl pellets. Lagiglia's daughter, Flavia, does the taxidermy and knows where the specimens and data are. Identified some owl pellet material from Cerro Nevada south of San Rafael (the daughter says from Rincon del Atuel). Dr. Lagiglia showed up later with walkie-talkie in hand directing the museum. His librarian brought in a stack of rodent reprints for me to look over: Roig, 1965 Mammals of Mendoza p 185 Fig. 5 says Akodon longipilis from Malargue. Massoia? and/or Contreras in Historia Natural No. 29 says olivaceus beatus at Los Aguaditos in San Rafael Dept. (6 specimens), pellet material I think. Numerous localities for molinae near San Rafael in Contreras and Rosi His. Nat. 1980 #26. I must check up on molinae vs. Abrothrix. Could be that molinae is not a good species. Left the Museum about 11 and headed for Chos Malal. Between Sosneado
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Pearson - 1991 and Las Lenas turnoff were "mima" mounds of Ephedra, rather nicely spaced, but looking more like the wind had blown away the soil between them. No tucos present. Also another set east of Sosneado, with a good layer of river stones underneath; no tucos. Stopped to admire the view at Cerro Chihuido, 20 km S. Malargue, and Anita found a snake (Amphisbaenid OP 7878) pinned under a rock in a rockslide. We stopped at a rather nice Museum in Malargue with a big Ichthyosaur and other local fossils. Also stopped at two caves visible from the road south of Malargue. Both had been excavated by archeologists; one even had scraps of their data sheets. That cave seems to have been called Cueva de da Luna. No animal amber in either of them, but one had a tuco skull. Camped in sandy/gravelly desert south of El Manzano. Anita put out 10 Shermans. Road was all paved except for about one hour. November 27,-El Manzano to Chos Malal. Nothing in Anita's 10 traps. Stopped at various lava caves and crevices. One cave a few km south of Ranquil Norte had a few droppings of viscacha and a smaller Cricetine? rodent. Nearby in a crevice was a handful of viscacha pellets mixed with vegetable fiber, cemented together but not with dark glossy "amber". Contained only viscacha droppings and vegetable fiber. The droppings can be separated out with forceps, but the mass is definitely "solid". Arrived at Chos Malal about 4 p.m. Crossed the two bridges across the Rio Caleufu and turned right upstream for 4.4 km looking for Budin's sand dunes "in the triangle between the Rios Caleufu and Neuquen". Then tried the road to Andocollo for about 5 km, but found no dunes, no tucos. Then went into town and asked around. Found two soldiers who said to go across the Caleufu and immediately after the bridge take the foottrail upstream, and we would surely find dunes and tunducos. We did so and passed numerous chacras but had to hike more than a km upstream before we came to some Larrea growing on top of sandy dunes. No fresh tuco sign, but I found a couple of old bocas that opened up into good tunnels. On the way back to the car parked at the bridge, a farmer working in his field told us that we could find tunducos if we went downstream to where the Monte was near the river (which is where we had just been). Back to Chos Malal to spend the night. November 28.- Chos Malal. Went back to the tuco place across the Rio Curileuvu from town and set 11 steel jumtraps in tuco burrows between 8:30 and 10:45 a.m. Saw no fresh sign, and heard none. All in sand dunes about 2 m high, held in place by big Larrea bushes and a yellow-flowered composite looking like rabbit brush. Then snooped around and checked the traps occasionally. Saw one hare. While we were checking traps at about 11 a.m., a real gauch0 rode past with dog. We told him that we were looking for tunducos. He said that the only tunducos were far away. Our next trap held a big
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female. In two open shallow bocas we found a toad. Picked up traps at 1 p.m. None had been disturbed. The tuco caught was in a pure sand dune on the edge of the river, but with the yellow-flowered shrub and Larrea. It seems to be Ctenomys emiliae. The color is same as mendocinus, but tail is longer, and body larger. All the burrows excavated were large enough to get your hand into. Much of this dune area in the triangle between the two rivers is flooded periodically; we could see flotsam caught in the bushes. Only the higher dunes would be above water. There seem to be similar low dunes across the bridge over the Rio Neuquen and down stream. I don't know why Ct. emiliae couldn't wash down to there during high water. Then headed south from Chos Malal but took a wrong turn (unmarked) onto a road under construction toward Las Lajas. A couple of hours later we emerged at Las Lajas having seen one long slender snake DOR and a rhea that crossed the road with 11 very small young maybe 29 km NE of Las Lajas. Camped at the bridge over the Rio Covunco. Cool, windy. November 29.- Zapala to Bariloche. Morning cold. Drove into Zapala for gas. A paisano hitch-hiker that we picked up a few kms west of Zapala, when asked what animals lived thereabouts, came up with rhea, pichi armadillo, hares AND rabbits, and grey fox; no guanaco, no tuco tucos. A little south of Zapala we began to see a few sheep; until then all goats. Picked up a grey fox DOR along the Rio Collon Cura about 10 km west of the bridge. Squashed hare count: San Rafael-Chos Malal 1; Chos Malal-Zapala 1; Zapala-La Rinconada 2; La Rinconada-Confluencia 1; Confluencia-Bariloche 1. Seven big Buteos were gathered at the Collon Cura hare carcase. It came as a surprise to see our first native tree since Chile (except willow) as we approached Confluencia along the reservoir: a couple of little chacay and maitens, then some cipres (Austrocedrus). There were fresh tuco diggings at the Ct. sociabilis site 10 km N Nahuel Huapi. December 1.-Bariloche. Looked at more of Adam Hajduc's mouse bones from his dig on Isla Victoria. Auliscomys is the most abundant, but also represented are Irenomys, Chelemys, Geoxus, guinea pig, Phyllotis, and Akodon. Several guinea pigs! Tea at Nelly Neumeyer's at km 1 on the Llao Llao route. She remembers tucos in her yard as a child, plus all sorts of birds. Now nothing but chimangos. She says Rosa mosqueta was brought in about 1915-1920 at the same time that a lot of things were brought in from Chile. Scotch broom came somewhat later. Huemuls used to be common in her father's time, and unbelievably tame. One even came into the pup tent of one of the old- timers. The earwigs have only been here for 10 or 20 years. December 3.-Slight drizzle. Went up Cerro Otto. Set 8 tuco traps about 10 a.m., and Anita set 18 Shermans for Abrothrix. Then dug rhizomes of bamboo.
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Pearson - 1991 Picked up traps at about 2 p.m. One tuco, no mice. Will send the tuco skull to Maria Rosi. Adam Hajduk came by in the evening with still more bones from Isla Victoria. December 4.-Windy drizzly. Went to Llao Llao in p.m. and checked bamboo, then drove back the road toward the picnic areas on Lgo Moreno. The road was blocked by two big treefalls, Set traps in bamboo places for Abrothrix for Castro-Vazquez. Found two large clumps of bamboo in full flower, and one death clump that flowered last year. No seedlings around it. Inspected one of the two flowering clumps and saw no new shoots, but a few dead shoots probably from last year. I set 30 Shermans and 2 steel traps. Three of the Shermans and the two steel traps were at the base of the flowering column of bamboo. Anita set 18 Shermans along the trail. Hung a sheet from a leaning bamboo culm and set the gas lantern at the bottom of it. Weather cool, but drizzle over. No insects of any sort came to the light, which burned for an hour or two after dusk, and for another 15 minutes in the middle of the night. December 5.- Llao Llao Peninsula. Morning cool, mostly cloudy. My traps held 3 Oryzomys and 3 Abrothrix. One of the Oryzomys was under the flowering column of bamboo. Anita's traps held 3 Abrothrix. Back to Bariloche at 9:30 a.m. December 6.- Gave talk at the meeting of SNAP (Sociedad Naturalista Andino- Patagónica): "La Vida Secreta de Lauchas de Campo). Almost all amateurs in the audience; nobody from Parques or INTA or University except Rapoport from Bcoton. December 7.- Drizzly. Looked for fresh tucos up above the university butnothing good. December 8.- Radio interview in the morning with Abel Basti and Carlos Romero. Then the Anglo-Argentine asado in the afternoon. Met the Administrador of Estancia Fortin Chacabuco. Last year or year before they harvested 130 red deer (by New Zealander's helicopter). The present administrator thinks that they could probably harvest 300 per year without endangering the population. Peter Sympson was in New Zealand learning how to artificially inseminate red deer and to bring back some semen. Lawrence Sympson is also looking into artificial insemination to increase the size of the local deer. Werner Flueck says they are wasting their time because the problem is malnutrition, not genetics. A Chilean couple from Frutillar, Chile, said that their quilla bamboo died last year, but they didn't seem to know whether it had bloomed. They are landscape architects and take care of a garden for Lever Brothers at Puyehue, but did not seem to be aware of the bloom going on there. December 9.- Bariloche. Slight drizzle. Drove to south end of Lago Guillelmo and set tuco traps, then up to La Veranada, through light hail, to the
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Pearson - 1991 marked balmboo clumps. Then back to Lago Guillermos to check the tuco traps and set some more. We had as many as 23 steel traps set. No sign of fresh digging, but no trouble locating big underground tunnels. Caught 3 big females, but released one of them. Heard one tuco calling and set 3 traps nearby, but didnt catch him, and he didnt block the tunnels where the traps were set. In fact, we either caught the tuco (3 of them), or the traps were undisturbed. Back to Bariloche at 6:30 p.m. December 11.- Visited the Parques Office and talked with Claudio Chehebar and Eduardo Ramilo. We checked rainfall records from Pampa Linda and Puerto Blest and decided that the May 1981 record from Pampa Linda is probably correct (Siegfrido Rubulis) and that the 83mm at Puerto Blest was the result of instrument failure. Abel Basti's notes indicate that June and July are probably ine rror also. A regression of Pampa Linda mean monthly rainfall against Puerto Blest rainfall for 44 months for which data are available, and leaving out May, June and July of 1981, which are suspect at Puerto Blest, I get an r = +.87 and rainfall at PB is 44% greater (or at Pampa Linda is 69%). The two localities are 22 km apart. Mean monthly ppt. at Puerto Blest = 1.125X + 45.13 Mean monthly ppt. at Pampa Linda = .671Y + 4.482 Then set tuco traps up on Cerro Otto near Piedras Blancas. Overcast, a dusting of new snow. Set 10 steel traps in the dandelion meadow between 11 a.m. and 12:15. Ran traps at 12:45 and had 1 male (kept for Rosi) and 1 female (released). One other trap plugged. Set 1 more trap, then picked them up at 1:30. Nothing more in them. No signs of new diggings anywhere, and heard none, but no trouble finding big underground tunnels. Rapoports came for tea. He is wondering why so few species of plants in Buenos Aires Province. Grazing by early releases of livestock? Fire? Outcompeted by European weeds? I lent him my copy of Macann's "Journey by horseback" which I think copntains reference to a sea of horse-high thistles, as in Darwin. December 12.- Bariloche. Drizzly. To Betinnellis'. Then Christie came by with asample of amberat from a rock crevice right by the road 1 km W Confluencia; definitely consolidated, but the individual droppings not defineable. Everything in the cave is covered with dust from the road. Then Fluecks came by. They say that there was a great local outcry when Estancia Fortin Chacabuco removed 130 deer a couple of years ago. The owner's representative, Roger Weewell?, says they could remove 300 per year without harming the population. December 13.- Julieta von Thungen came by. She is still at INTA, working on foxes, use of dogs to protect sheep from foxes, and collars on sheep laced with 1080 to kill killer foxes. Then at 7 p.m. we went to Llao Llao to catch moths. Camped back the Fogon road to Lago Moreno. Moths of three sizes were flying at dusk, but they
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Pearson - 1991 were not attracted to the butane lantern and sheet. Finally one flew into the lantern and when I tipped the lantern to get him out it clogged up and we couldnt get it started again. Subsequently two flew into the headlights and got lost. A few beetles came to a flashlight shining on the sheet. Temperature was cool, clear. I think I remember moths flying at dusk at Ruca Malen in the bamboo. December 14.- Back to Bariloche at 8:30 a.m. Clear. Fluecks have been studying deer up in the Cuyin Manzano close to the type locality of Ctenomys sociabilis. There is a cabin near there that they use. December 15.-Blustery, cool, partially cloudy. Returned Ruiz and Pavon book to Nelly Neumeyer. She says that burned tree trunks on the north slope of Cerro Otto were there in her father's time. She listed a long series of fires that she remembers. Went back to the Fogon campsite near Lago Moreno on the Llao Llao Peninsula at 7:30 p.m. Cool (you could see your breath), occasional sprinkles, blustery in the tree tops but calm in the bamboo. Only one moth, medium-sized, was attracted to the lantern-and-sheet, and it got away. Saw one other while jacklighting; it got away. About 11 p.m. we gave up and took down the sheet...and there was a medium sized moth on the bottom backside of the sheet. Maybe the one that got away. This was in the middle of a canaveral. Then we burned the lantern in the car for a while and caught one smaller moth against a window. This was 5 m away in the same canaveral. Another pale moth along the paved road back toward Llao Llao. Home midnight. There were a few young shoots in the canaveral, but not many. December 16.- Bariloche. On the radio again with Abel Basti and Contreras: fire eology. December 17.- Christie back from Termas de Puyehue. Poured rain there. He saw no signs of a mouse outbreak in the quila bamboo bloom. He left 11 traps at the pass hoping to get Euneomys mordax and the next day had 2 Chelemys, 2 Abrothrix, and 1 Auliscomys. He says the habitat is very similar to the mordax habitat at Copahue. Bettinellis brought 2 bird road kills for MVZ, Monjeau a manuscript to read. Fluecks brought letters to mail. December 18.- To Buenos Aires. Dinner with Osvaldo, Estella, and Gustavo Reig. Osvaldo is looking gaunt but still writing every day, not keeping in touch with Argentine mammalogists.
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O. P. Pearson 1991 Argentina Species Accounts
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Pearson - 1991 Bamboo October 21- La Veranada. Read leaves from branches of two known-age culms (3 year old, hence 2 years of leaf production). Many of the branches had 8 leaves, clearly 4 + 4 with a long gap between each set of 4, but a fairly long gap between 3 and 4 and 7 and 8. Also many of the branches had a fairly long (35 to 49mm) furled terminal leaf. Since it is so early in the spring, this leaf must have started to grow last summer or fall and will continue this spring. Hence a long season last year and maybe the year before. Leaf lengths were short long long short. Another culm of unknown age that was related to the rhizomes under study had as many as 17 leaves and leaf scars, or 6 long interleaf gaps, hence probably was 6 or 7 years old (5 or 6 crops of leaves). October 24.- Cerro Otto. A few patches of snow still, lenga leaves partly out, lots of earth cores. Dug up an entire, isolated clump [the Dead Sea Clump] near clump A2; it consists of 19 culms in a nicely graded size series ranging from 2.0 mm in diameter to 20 mm at ground level, not counting a pair of big "new shoots" that didn't quite make it above ground, one of them dead and the other almost dead. The gradient of diameters of culms matches nicely their place of emergence along the zigzag rhizome. The diameters of the successive culms increased rather steadily through production of the 13th culm (7.3 mm0, then increased abruptly to 12.5 mm (a 5-yr-old culm), and increased again steadily until production of the last three culms, which were between 18 and 20 mm. The oldest, smallest 9 culms were all dead, 10 and 11 were alive, 12 was dead, and the rest were alive. The youngest two were yearlings coming off of opposite sides of the same rhizome, whose terminal culm was 4 years old and was the biggest of all the culms (20 mm diam at ground level). The smallest living culm was the oldest of the live culms, judging from its position along the sequence of rhizomes, and also judging from its leaf cohorts (7 cohorts = 8 years old). There were at least 9 smaller, dead culms, so the clump probably started from a seed several years earlier, giving a total age of at least 10 and probably more than 15 years for this small clump. No dead clumps remained nearby that might have served as a seed source. [new culms not produced every year]. October 28.- Llao Llao. At B2, one new shoot was up about 5 inches. It came off of a rhizome ending in a broken-top '89-'90 #1, hence 2 years old. Another new shoot up only 1 inch. Its rhizome terminated in a little dead shoot that protruded only about 1 inch above ground. It might be 1 year old, or we might have overlooked it last spring, in which case it would be 2 years old. Note that the new shoot was doing well without any help from this parent shoot, which was dead and had never amounted to anything. It was not
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Pearson - 1991 obviously parasitized, but only 1" tall. These two new shoots in B2 were the only new shoots we saw anywhere (including B1). A small "clump" of 4 slender culms growing a half meter out from B2 had only small rhizomes, no connection to B2. A couple of big coihue roots ran close to it. The dead shoots in B2 added up to 17 killed by parasites and 2 not obviously parasitized. There were 14 live yearlings over 1 m, some of which may have had dead tips. Hence, of 33 new shoots produced last year, at least 17 were killed by parasites. At B1 there were 12 new culms and shoots produced: 8 of them were live, over 1m, and 4 of those had dead tips; there was 1 short dead shoot (parasitized); and 3 parasitized shoots less than 1m but green at the base. Hence: 12 shoots produced last year, 8 of them parasitized. Took a quick look at the auxiliary clumps back the side road. The flowered clump that we noticed last year is still standing, with no seedlings nearby. The smallest clumps seem to be 5 or more years old. One flowering branch was mostly dead but included completely dead and dry flowered branches, at least one small new green flowering branch, and some branches with various combinations of green leaves and dried flower heads. Nov. 2. Rio Castano Overo. No signs of bloom yet, and no new shoots up yet. Found 2 examples of a marked yearling culm producing a new culm the next year. November 9.- Bariloche. Tested overnight an Abrothrix and an Auliscomys caught in desert habitat 13 km S Epuyen. Put in each of their cages a bud-shoot about 6 inches long, woody at the base but looking failry crisp at the tip; not yet above ground. The Abrothrix did not touch his; the Auliscomys ate a couple of inches of the more tender tip part but stopped when he came to the fibrous part. November 12.- Puerto Blest. Visited clump D2, two new shoots above ground. Then D1, part of which had bloomed last year. Most of last year's blooming culms still had some green on them and at lest a few green new blooms. No seedlings visible, no seeds in the seed heads. We excavated rhizomes at about 4 places and found no mixing of rhizomes of flowering and non- flowering culms, as though they were separte plants. The flowering rhizome systems had no live, fresh-looking buds or underground shoots, and no yearling culms. The youngest flowering culm was 4 years old when it flowered last year (cohort '86-87). There were 2 of them of that age. The non-flowering plant was not all that vigorous, however: no dead shoots and only 2 yearlings; some live-looking underground buds and shoots, however. No new shoots up yet at this clump. About 30 ft. away from D1, toward the road, are the canes of a very death clump, dead at least 10 years, and, 20 ft. from it, dead canes of a rather indistinct clump, also long-dead. Between these and D1, near where
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Pearson - 1991 we have found seedling clumps in the past, are at least 10 young clumps of maybe 10 years of age. I dug up 3 young clumps of apparently different ages, maybe 5 to 15 years old; see photos. Sure looks like non-synchronous seeding. As a strategy to avoid shoot predators, why not, instead of mass suicide, synchronous cessation of shoot production for a few years? There are lots of yearling shoots in the general population, which suggests that this is not going to be the year of the big bloom. In a clump nearby there was a tall yearling culm with larva-eaten top at the 10-foot level. We did the census to El Abuelo and back: 2 flowering clumps on the westside of the road (one of them a big one in the first pullout place, and 5 blooming clumps on the east side =total 7. Two of the east side clumps consisted of culms that had bloomed last year but that still carried some green leaves and green blossoms. November 16.- Bariloche-Osorno. Descending from Paso Puyehue on the Chilean side, a few km below the Chilean border station and shortly after you start to see the first bamboo, there is a low bushy bamboo maybe 4 feet tall with branched culms, wide leaves, like a mini-quila. Nearby is a couleu-like one with small narrow leaves and many more buds than in our couleu. Plus also an ordinary-looking couleu. Then we came to quila, great mounds of it, and before long we noticed that there were blooms on it. Every plant for perhaps a half km was in bloom. When we got near Termas de Puyehue, there were stretches where the plants looked dead and had last-year's seed heads on them, like the specimen that Michael Christie brought us. Then some stretches with no blooms or stretches with most plants freshly blooming. No mice squashed on the road, no raptor concentrations, no parrots or pigeons. It is perfectly clear that this mass blooming is not synchronous. Perhaps a tenth or less of the clumps bloomed and died last year; half are blooming this year, and the rest have new culms and no blooms, maybe to bloom next year. If the yearling culms sticking out above the clump do not have blooms, then that culm is not blooming this year. We saw no seedlings coming up, but didn't really look very carefully for them. December 3.- Cerro Otto. No new shoots visible at clump A1 out in the open. Numerous new shoots at A2. Of 15 dead shoots at A2, 12 were clearly parasitized. There were 20 yearling shoots over 1 m, hence >34% of last year's production was killed by parasitization. December 9.- La Veranada. New shoots are up about 8 inches. Checked 8 of them and found two parasitized. At Lago Guillermo, checked 19 shoots without finding any parasitized ones. On many of them we only checked for a hole without dissecting the shoot, and may have missed some parasitized, because in a couple of shoots we found a larva and no visible hole to the outside.
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Pearson - 1991 21 INDEX Abrothrix 5,6,15,17 Airport 1 Akodon molinae 10 Akodon xantho 2 amberat 13,16 Armadillo 12 Auliscomys 8,14,17 Bamboo 1,2,3,4,6,7,8 15,17,18-21 Berberis 3,4,5 Buteo 14 Buttercups 5 Castano Overo 3 Cavia 14 (see g. pig) Cerro Medio 11 Cerro Otto 2,15,16,17 Chelemys 1,14,17 Chile 8 Chimango 5,9 Cholila 5,6 Chos Malal 13 climate 1,16 Condor 4,11 Deer 2,15,16 Doves 2 Dromiciops 7 Barwigs 15 Bligmodontia 2,11 Epuyen 6 Buneomys 8,9,11 Fir 3 Fire 6,7 Flamingo 5 Fort San Rafael 10,12 Fox 5,12 Geese 4 Geoxus 14 Grindelia 11 Guinea pig 7,11,12,14 Gutmann, Nadia 1 Hajduk 7,14,15 Hare 3,4,6,8,9,11,14 Huemul 2,14 Ibis 5 Irenomys 14 Isla Huemul 1 Isla Victoria 7,14 Kite 9 Lagiglia 10 Lago Guillermo 16 Lapwings 5 La Veranada 1,7 Lenga 2,8 Llaollao 1,2,15,17 Los Alerces 5 Mackinnon 6 Mendoza 10 mima mounds 13 Mink 5 Moths 1,3,17 Mus 2 Mustard 8 Neil, Don Diego 6 Notiomys 4 Oryzomys 5,6,15 Pampa del Toro 1 Parque Los Alerces 5 Parrots 2,3,4 Phyllotis 12,14 Portillo 9 Puerto Blest 7 Puyehue 3,8 Quila 17 (see bamboo) Rabbit 14 Rainfall 16 Rapoport 16 Reig 17 Rhea 14 Rio Foyel 5 Rosa mosqueta 14 San Rafael 10 Santa Cruz Prov. 2,5 Sap of coihue 4 Scotch broom 8 SARBM 10 Skunk 11 SNAP 1,15 Spalacopus 9 tinamous 11 toad 12,14 Tucos 2,6,7,11,12,13 14,15,16 Viscacha 7 25 de Mayo 11 Volcan Hudson 2 von Thungen 16
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Pearson - 1992 Catalog 2 km N. Cerro Leon, Rio Negro, Argentina October 31 + liver 7894 ♂ Abodon pantalhineus 148 x 56 x 20 x 15 23g testa 11mm, SV 11mm. + liver 7895 ♂ " 145 x 58 x 19 x 16 23g. testa 10mm, SV 14mm 7896 ♂ 115 x 43 x 18 x 13 11g testa 9mm, SV 6mm 30 km W José de San Martín, Chubut + skull + liver in alc., stomach in alc. 7897 ♀ Notiomyedwardsi fat testa 6mm, red, SV 10. Healed scar on 127 x 40 x 19 x 9 26.5g. front leg, affixed necrosis broken, eye 4 mm diam 6 fetuses, diam. 9 mm. eye diam 3.5 mm. 123 x 45 x 19 x 14 20.9 7898 ♀ Abo panttha. testa 5.5 ; SV 9. Tubules invisible 147 x 67 x 22 x 17 18g 7899 ♂ Elajnmodatin morgani maltyp int. diam. 1mm diam. No scars. eye diam 3.5 134 x 60 x 22 x 14 12g 8000 ♀ " Sago Buenos Aires, 30 km W Puerto Morano, Santa Cruz, Argentina Dec. 5 8001 ♂ Elajnmodatin morgani testa 7, SV 10 173 x 90 x 23 x 17 19g uterine scars, lactating 168 x 87 x 22 x - 21g 8002 ♀ " " testa 7, SV 13 186 x 99 x 24 x 18.5 28g 8003 ♂ " " testa 7, SV 15 180 x 96 x 24 x 18 26g 8004 ♂ " " testa 8, SV 12 170 x 93 x 23 x 18 20g 8005 ♂ " " Vagina open, faint scar), lactating 170 x 85 x 23 x 17 23g 8006 ♀ " " open vagina (4 fetuses) 14mm CK 181 x 94 x 22 x 18 29g. 8007 ♀ " " testa 6, SV 11 162 x 71 x 23 x 16 24g 8008 ♂ " " testa 6, SV 12 [157] x [90] x 23 x 16 20g 8009 ♂ " " Muffle large, no pulse), 9 fetuses (5 mm diam 179 x 80 x 24 x 17 26g 8010 ♀ " " 8011 Gecko
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OP Pearson 1992 Estancia La Aurora, 44 km E Las Antiguos Prov. Santa Cruz, Argentina Dec. 6, 1992 8012 ♂ Eligmodontia morani Testis ?; SV 13 188 × 98 × 23.5 × 18 30g Testis 7½, SV 14 180 × 96 × 24 × 19 29g 8013 ♂ " " 8014 ♀ " " 178 × 94 × 22 × 18.5 36g nipples large, normal, 4 sub bumps 3mm 177 × 93 × 22 × 18 28g 8015 ♀ " " 8016 ♂ Reithrodon auritus Testis 14, SV 24 231 × 84 × 32 × 26 95g uterine crypts not clear 146 × 53 × 24 × 19 24g 8017 ♀ " " Testis 12, SV 15 142 × 53 × 21 × 15 28g vagina open, uterus 3mm, fluidy mucus. 184 × 91 × 28 × 22.5 28g 8018 ♂ Akodon xanthorhinus Testis 10 mm; SV 19 262 × 126 × 28 × 26 78g 8019 ♀ Phyllotis xanthopygus Testis ?; SV 14 178 × 89 × 24 × 19.5 22g 8020 ♂ " " 8021 ♂ Eligmodontia morani Testis 12, SV 16 202 × 77 × 30 × 23 58g Testis 11, SV 17 [236] × [116] × 30 × 28 77g Testis 11, SV 17 [238] × [108] × 30 × 28 69g nipples large, vagina closed. 6 bumps ends. 201 × 100 × 24 × 21 28g 8022 ♂ Reithrodon auritus Testis ?; SV 13 187 × 96 × 24 × 19 23g 8023 ♂ Phyllotis xanthopygus Testis ?; SV 14 189 × 94 × 24 × 20 27g 8024 ♀ Phyllotis " 8025 ♀ Eligmodontia morani Testis 9, SV 13 182 × 94 × 23 × 17 20g 8026 ♂ " " 8027 ♂ " " Testis 8; SV 12 196 × 95 × 23 × 19 31g 8028 ♂ " " 8029 ♂ " " 8030 ♀ Phyllotis xanthopygus lactating; 5 bumps - scars 253 × 120 × 28.5 × 27 67g Testis 10 mm; SV 17 246 × 110 × 30 × 27 76g 8031 ♂ " " 8032 ♀ Reithrodon auritus nipples large, normal, 4 fetuses, 26g CR 224 × 86 × 31 × 24 79g nipples large, normal, 4 fetuses, 25.2g CR 221 × 81 × 31 × 24 87g 8033 ♀ " " 8034 ♂ " " Testis 13, SV 19 235 × 91 × 32 × 24.5 76g ovaries not large. Vagina open; nipples milk; 11 bumps, #uterus 11 bumps: 8R:3L 210 × 78 × 32 × 21 46g 8035 ♀ " " 8036 ♂ Phyllotis xanthopygus Testis 11, SV 20 262 × 125 × 30 × 27 83g
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OP Pearson 1992 Estancia La Aurora (continued) 8037 ♀ Phyllotis xanthopygus vagina open, lactating; 5 luteal scars 257 × 115 × 29.5 × 27 63g 8038 ♂ Eligmodontia morgani Testis 7 mm; SV 14 197 × 101 × 24 × 18 25g 8039 ♂ Akodon xanthorhinus Testis 16; SV 16 lungs 0.5 145 × 53 × 21.5 × 14 20g 8040 ♀ " " pink CL, nipples large, much mammary tissue Gembola 4.5 mm; 156 × 59 × 21 × 16 24g 8041 ♀ " " 6 fetuses, 21 CR, vagina open, nipples large, no milk 149 × 55 × 20 × 15 33g Estancia La Aurora, 4.4 km E Los Antiguos Prov. Santa Cruz, Argentina Dec. 7, 1992 8042 ♀ Phyllotis xanthopygus vagina not open, nipples large, 9 lump-ombi, 5 mm 265 × 125 × 28.5 × 28 47g 8043 ♀ " " vagina not open, nipples large, 6 lump-ombi, 6 mm dia. 260 × 123 × 30 × 29 70g 8044 ♀ " " ovaries: pale ct uterus: 4 ova; 253 × 115 × 29 × 28 70g 8045 ♀ Eligmodontia morgani vagina not open, nipples large, milk, 3 lump-ombi, 3 mm 183 × 89 × 24 × 18.5 28g 8046 ♀ " " vagina not open, nipples large, no milk, 7 lump-ombi, 4 mm dia. 190 × 95 × 24 × 18.5 27g 8047 ♂ " " vagina not open, nipples large, no milk, 9 lump-ombi, 14 mm dia. 205 × 105 × 24 × 20.5 28g not saved 8048 ♂ " " " " 5.6g not saved 8049 ♂ " " " " 6.5g (one Phyllotis escaped) 30 km W. José de San Martín, Prov. Chubut Argentina Dec. 8, 1992 8050 ♂ Akodon xanthorhinus Testis 10; SV 15 148 × 60 × 20 × 14 19.5 8051 ♂ Eligmodontia morgani Testis 6; SV 13 160 × 75 × 22 × 15 18.5 tallo 923 Eligmo = 92.78 ± SE 1.51 (proven Santa Cruz) from Río Negro ad 88 84.29 ± 1.49 n = 49 99.9 88.51 ± 1.24 n = 47
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Pearson-1992 2 mostly cloudy and windy. Drove up Cerro Otto to Piedras Blancas and visited our two bamboo clumps. About same. Clump A1 out in the open had two surviving shoots about 2m tall; a little snow in the middle of the clump. A few other patches of snow on the slope, but not as much as last year (when we were a week or more earlier). Lenga leaves were wellout on some of the trees. Lots of earth cores from tucos and/or Chelemys, plus heaps of loose earth up to 10 gallons in volume, not at all weathered, some of them in fairly forested spots where unlikely to be tucos. Finished doing the pellets collected by Patricia Fierro on October 25 at Rayhuao, 25km S Pilcaniyeu =halfway between Pilcaniyeu and Las Bayas. Pellets were under mixed conifer and hardwood trees around the ranchouse; from the size they were Bubo: Ako. xantho. 12 (o,?,ygad,ygad,?,ad,o,ad,ad,ad,ad Euneo. chinch. 9 (o,ad,o,ad,ad,ad,ad,o,ad Reithro. 5 (ad,ad,ad,ad,ad) Ctenomys 2 (both small) Eligmo. 2 (ad,ad) Aulisco. 1 (ad) Abro. longipilis 1 (ad) Bird 1 Insect 1 (large chestnut sheets of chitin) Went to Patricia Fierro's and Jorge Vallerini for dinner. Very windy/rainy/snowy. Raw. Signs blown down. Jorge says lots of rocks at Rayhuao where the pellets with Euneomys came from. About a half-inch of wet snow and wind while we were there. October 29- Bariloche. Morning cold (38), clear, windy. Ice on the sidewalks in shady places. Cars from the suburbs had more than 3 inches of snow on their roofs. Since we have been here this trip, the pressure has risen gradually 500 ft. Gave two Euneomys skulls to Parques. About 4 pm put traps out for Akodon xanthorhinus on the road to the airport. Dramatic difference in snow cover between the turnoff from the lakeshore highway (no snow) to the airport (about 2 inches). I put 29 Shermans baited with rolled oats and Anita put 29 baited with rolled oats and cornmeal; bunchgrass, rosa mosqueta, Colletia, Acaena, Berberis. Cold and windy, partly cloudy. After dinner Maria Elena D'Angelcola, Salta 587 1A, came calling. She is from Univ. Buenos Aires and is looking for field experience. Had done some work with fishes. November 30- Temperature at apartment 40°F, airport 2°C and 40km wind;. Still some snow out near the airport. Ran our traps at 8:30, sunny, windy. My line had 4 Abro. longipilis, 3 Auliscomys, 1 Oryzomys, 1 Reithrodon; all
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Pearson-1992 3 adults. Anita's traps had 5 Abro. longi, 2 Auliscomys, 2 Oryzomys, 1 Reithrodon. The Reithrodon was only half-grown. Trap success = 33%. No xanthorhinus! Then drove on to the Airport and looked for pellets under the rows of conifers at right angles to the wind. Found none, but a freshly dead barn owl under one of the trees. One dead hare on the airport road. Saw a pair of ducks with fuzzy young. At 4:30 put out traps at the southeast corner of the turnoff to Pilcaniyeu (DinaHuapi). It is becoming a real estate development with roads, ditches for tubes, etc. Habitat bunchgrass, Baccharis, Rosa, Colletia, neneo, a couple of maiten trees. Not as rich as last night's lines on the airport road. I put 27 traps and Anita put 27. In the evening went to a lecture by Rodolfo Casamiquela touting his new book about the Tehuelche indians. October 31- Morning partly cloudy, 44, very windy. My trapline had nothing. Anita's had 1 Abro. longipilis and 3 Akodon xanthorhinus. One of them only 11 gm, a male, almost breeding (testes 9mm). November 1- Morning partly cloudy, 38, snow flurries, then snowed fairly hard until noon, but none stayed on the ground. Went out to Llao Llao in the morning and looked at our bamboo patches. B2 at the crossroads had a number of tall surviving shoots; they were sending out leaves, not flowers. A huge dombeyi limb had fallen right on B1, practically obliterating it. It squashed down a "clearing" about 40 ft. in diameter. The trail back to these bamboo that we used to drive is now barely passable on foot, not because new bamboo has grown up in the trail (an old arriage trail for Llao Llao Hotel?) but because canes lean over into the right-of-way, helped occasionally by falling limbs. A few Scotch broom were blooming, a few Berberis darwini, wild cherries. November 2- Bariloche. Morning 38, partly cloudy, snow flurries during the day. Went out to INTA and saw Bonino and Bellati. Bellati still working on foxes. Julietta von Thungen is in Cordoba with Bucher working for a master's degree, nothing new on her viscachas. Talked with one of the German satellite group (C.R.Lopez). They have been studying the Volcan Hudson event. There were two eruptions. The first one was smaller and the plume went to the north sort of along the Chile/Argentine border, but mostly Chile. The second plume went west to the coast. Deposits averaged 5-10 cm deep near the center of the plume. The vegetation is now full of fluorine and sulfur. One of the hazards of driving was thinking you were driving onto a bed of ash when in reality it was pumice
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Pearson-1992 4 floating on water. November 3- Bariloche. Temp 40, partly cloudy. Barometer rising at last. Interviewed by Abel Basti for an article on bamboo for La Manana del Sur. At 4 pm drove to La Veranada to check our bamboo clumps. Only a few surviving yearling shoots, but otherwise the same. The clamp in the road right-of-way that we cut down years ago is still alive, but hardly thriving. Then we walked up into the lenga forest on the old trail. The nire trees there are bigger than east of the road. The bamboo becomes bigger and taller before you come to the lenga trees. There was almost no snow left east of the road, but much more right where the bamboo becomes bigger. More shade? The lenga leaves are coming out, but most of the nire are still pretty bare. Some of the bent-over bamboo culms had a layer of snow on them with a layer of lenga leaves on top of that, which seems to say that there was early snow last fall before the lenga leaves had fallen. Evening clear. November 4- Bariloche. Temperature 38, clear, not windy. Today's paper says that the very low temperatures, strong winds, and the inclement weather during the second half of October, the season of birth, may have reduced the sheep/wool crop, partly through increased fox predation. Quotes Ramon Marful, whose Estancia, where we did the Reithrodon study, runs 3500 sheep on 8000 ha. It also quotes Adolfo Sarmiento at INTA who said that he had heard of losses of sheep near Pilcaniyeu, Cerro Alto, Las Bayas, Coquelen, and south of Comallo. Adrian Monjeau came by with his team of three students: Nadia Guthman, Karin Heinemann, and Mariana Losada. They have a graph of the longevity of about 50? banded Akodon xanthorhinus. The oldest was about 10 months. Visited Michael Christie's office. Only Miguel Gross was there. Gallopin is moving to Cali, Colombia. November 5- Bariloche. Morning 55, clear, not windy. Drove to the rocky cliff overlooking Estancia Tehuel Malal and hunted for owl pellets. I think an increase of rosa mosqueta and of Colletia since last visit several years ago. Found two or three liters of pellets and saw one barn owl in a crevice in the cliff. No viscachas. A dead elk and numerous elk droppings. Young maiten trees are completely stripped of leaves and twigs. Sheep, black Angus, horses, and hares grazing on the flats down below. On the way back to Bariloche in the afternoon, 50 or more hectares of grassy/bushy steppe was burning furiously between the airport and the Lake (Estancia Condor). Yesterday another freeze (-3C) hit Neuquen and
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finished off the apple and pear crop. The paper says that this is the latest frost that anyone can remember. November 6- Bariloche. Morning 55, clear, mild. Dissected owl pellets. Dinner with Michael Christie and Patricia at their rented house on the lake in the pine trees at the gas station where the Pilcaniyeu road takes off. Tuco- tuco in the front yard cut the roots of domestic rose bushes, a small Araucaria tree, and grazing around feeding holes in the lawn. Soil very sandy. Michael says lots of house mice. He followed the tracks of one in the snow from one bush to another, then found the beast dead under a bush. Lorenzo Sympson has found another cave with deposits of amberat at Estancia La Primavera, in a dense cipres stand. He says that he sees as many as a dozen elk grazing on the lawn at the Primavera casco. He is supposed to clear with Parques to get permission to shoot any. He is convinced that hunters shooting the best bucks has ruined the genetic stock, but at the same time admits that the elk have prevented reproduction of the Nothofagus and cipres on La Primavera. He says that Estancia Fortin Chacabuco doesn't have any bucks left worth shooting. November 7- Bariloche. Morning 55, overcast. The first mink tails have appeared in the fir tree in the back yard. November 8- Bariloche. Morning 50. Day mostly cloudy. November 9- Morning 50. Left at 9 for Chile. Scattered clouds. Lots of Berberis darwini in bloom. Altimeter at Lake level at 9:30 ws 2600 ft., at our lizard/mouse stop approaching the pass 3780 ft, at the pass 4200 ft. On the edge of snowbanks at 3760 ft. we found runways, earthcores, and a few droppings that looked like Reithrodon and Auliscomys. Many lizards basking. The first quila (Chusquea valdivianus) was 5.8 km east of the Chilean aduana. The first dead quila was 8.8 km east of the aduana. From then on to the Hotel Puyehue most of the quila was "dead". A few live clumps, and all the couleou live. Drove to Parkguard Nicolas Pacheco's house at Aguas Calientes. He has a clump of Ch. uliginosa in his backyard and says it is native here. We then drove out with Niko, Milton Gallardo, and his student Freddy to look for a place to set traps. The pure dead quila is impossible to work in. You can walk across the top of it, sort of, but you are 2 or 3 feet above the ground. We set traps along the edge of linear break cut recently through the quila under a power line. Freddy and I set 29 Shermans along the edge of the cut quila. A few blackberry bushes near the beginning of our line, but otherwise pure dead quila and a few logs. Milton, Anita and Nico set 58 Shermans in similar habitat. No signs of mice while setting traps, none squashed on the road, and Nico says some botanists or mycologists were here only a short
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Pearson-1992 6 time ago and only caught modest numbers of mice (Irenomys, Akodon olivaceus, Akodon longipilis, and Oryzomys). No quila seeds, no new sprouts. This trap locality must be about 2km NE HotelTermas de Puyehue. Drove around looking for some places where a census grid might be set up without herculean effort to fight through the quila. Found a couple of prospects, but will wait to see how the trapping is. Niko, a good informant, says that although the quila looks dead it is still ripening its seeds and that not until next year can one expect seeds and mice. He showed me a seed head from which he could squeeze a drop of milk from some of the "flowers". Dinner and overnight at Nico's house. Milton had a lot of new reprints. Patterson had told him nothing about Pearsonomys. A brief excursion with the night vision goggles, but saw nothing. November 10- Aguas Calientes- Heavy rain during the night. Freddy's and my trap line caught 2 Akodon olivaceus, 1 Ako longipilis, and 1 Oryzomys. The other line, set by Nico and Milton, caught nothing. There was very little green vegetation on either line, and all of the captures were on the first half of our line, which had a few blackberry bushes. Then we drove to 4.7km NE Hotel Termas de Puyehue and walked through a beautiful old-growth mixed forestof about 6 species of big trees including a few BIG arayanes perhaps 2 ft DBH, and enormous fallen trunks. Some living culeou clumps at the edges. It is where the power-line, recently cleared, crosses the road. I left one cage trap there along the road at an especially yummy set. Then we drove halfway to Antillanca, under the guidance of Nicolas, and stopped at the pullout place described by Lyn Clark, 9.5km from the Hotel (Antillanca?) on the north side of the road. This is where she thinks she has a new bamboo. Back in the sphagnum swamp near the lake we found two clumps in bloom. Lots more, of course, not in bloom. Nicolas knew that this bamboo was special, and says that finding a few in bloom means that next year there will probably be lots in bloom. Enormous quantities of other, non-blooming bamboo along the road from Aguas Calientes to this mallin. In the afternoon, I put 39 Shermans around the edge of a dead quila island in the middle of a pasture that had been cleared about 40 years ago, then cleared a bit more about 5 year ago. There was more chaura, blackberry, fuchsia, and other bushes than last night, but still not very much. The ends of a lot of the canes leaning out into the pasture had been chopped off, and all the dry quila flowers at the edge had been
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Pearson-1992 7 grazed by cows. Ran out of bait before I got all the way around the island, which is about 200m long and 50 m wide, with a few "entrances" into the quila. The last trap was in the hollow trunk of a live arayan tree about 3 ft. in diameter. Even Nicolas thought it was a big one. Then walked home to Nico's house. Drizzle most of the day. This locality is 2.4 km by road (North) toward Termas de Puyehue from the hosteria at Aguas Calientes; altitude about 440m (altitude from Nicolas). November 11- Aguas Calientes, Chile. Morning clear, no clouds, mild temp. Nicolas says they frequently get 4000 mm of rain per year. My line around the edge of the island of dead quila, 39 traps, caught 1 Akodon olivaceus breeding male tagged 825, and 1 Akodon longipilis open vagina tagged 826. One of the two was caught at the base of a very dead clump of quila that presumably had bloomed earlier than the rest of the "dead" quila (which is not really dead because most of it has a few green leaves and it is presumably still ripening its seeds). I then filled in a blank in the trap line with numbers 36a- 36f, and completed the "surround" of the island with 5 more traps. Total number of traps 50. Traps 36e and 36d are at the base of two additional old dead clumps of quila. No sprouts visible, but the dead culms might be several years dead. We are seeing numerous Araucarian pigeons. The 120 traps (60 Shermans plus 40 steel-based rat traps) set by Milton and Fredy and the 34 Shermans set by Anita caught only 3 Akodon olivaceus and 2 Ako longipilis. Beautiful mixed forest habitat bordering living quila. Nothing in my cage trap along the road at their area. This is 4.7 km NE of the road junction at Termas de Puyehue. Walked with Milton through a lovely woodsy trail in the park at Aguas Calientes. Big arayanes, lots of moss and lichens, a waterfall. Ran my line again with Anita. The only capture was Akodon male 825 in trap 15. It had been in trap 8 this morning, which would be a movement of about 55 yards. Then we set 10? small Shermans along the edge of pasture and big dead quila above the road. Also two cage traps in the ditch along the road at km 1.950 along the road between Termas and Aguas Calientes. 1---2---3---4---\/--6--7--8--| |--9--10--11--12--\/--14-- 15--16-- | 5 || 13 | 44--43--42--41--40--39--38--37-| 36a,b,c | 36d,e,f | 35--34--33-/\-
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untagged adult male olivaceus; Trap #20 untagged male olivaceus sexually immature; Trap #30 a smallish female olivaceus with open vagina. This makes a total of at least 5 mice on the 1-ha island: 4 olivaceus and 1 longipilis. Two of them were tagged on the first day, one olivaceus recaptured 50 yards away, but neither of the tagged mice was recaptured in the final two trapping sessions. Also picked up the 12 small Shermans on the way back to the car. They held one more Ako olivaceus that I overlooked on the morning check. Then drove to the main trapping area 4.7 km NE of the Termas de Puyehue road fork and checked the Museum Special traps that we had set on the road shoulder. Anita's held 2 olivaceus and 1 longipilis. Mine held nothing. My 10 cage traps held nothing either. Anita set 20 more Museum Specials back in the woods. These are in addition to her original line of 34 Shermans in the woods and 20 Museum Specials along the road. Then we cut a short trail back into a big clump of dead quila that looked like it had been dead for at least 2 years. There was also some 1-year blooming big quila there also. Underneath the dead-dead clump was lots of rich mulch a rotten log, but no sprouts or seeds. I set 10 Shermans there in an area of only 15 X 15 ft. George Vallerini drove past while we were setting traps along the road, on his way to Valdivia to meet Patricia. Home at 8 pm. No rain all day, mostly sunny. November 13- Aguas Calientes, Chile. Morning overcast. Various trap lines in the morning: Milton and Freddy in their 170? traps had 2 Ako olivaceus. My 10 Shermans in the "dead" bamboo clump had nothing. My 10? cage traps along the road had 1 Ako longi; my 2 cage traps along the road had nothing. Anita's 20 and my 15? Museum Specials along the edge of the road at 4.7 km NE had 7 Ako olivaceus, 4 Ako longi, 1 Auliscomys, and 2 Oryzomys. We are both being bitten by leeches, probably along this ditch. Another unusual feature of trapping around here is the abundance of very small flour beetles robbing the rolled oats in the Sherman traps, especially those set around the bloomed quila. Are they part of the bamboo seed cycle? Started raining after lunch, sometimes hard. We all drove up to the ski lodge at Antillanca through quila, macrostachya, culeou, and finally montana at the lodge. This does not include the culeou-like species in the sphagnum bog. The montana is definitely knobby- jointed and numerous culms are zig-zaggy. A km or so below the lodge is a grassy airstrip? with Chelemys- sized burrows in it and a few small earth cores; also
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Pearson-1992 10 in elevated places around the edge of this level field. Checked traps at 7 p.m., still mostly rainy. 1 Ako olivaceus in the forest, 6 more olivaceus and 2 longipilis from the Museum Specials along the road. Our total day's catch 24 mice, all except 1 of them from roadside in about 48 traps. Are we seeing a Kravetz effect where the population really resides in the margins of the agricultural fields, and some species then move into the fields at appropriate times? The forests and bamboo patches are certainly pretty empty right now. Heard parrots once today. Lots of pigeons. November 14- Aguas Calientes, Chile. Morning scattered clouds, a few showers. Trap lines at 9 a.m. as follows: 10 shermans in clump of old bamboo-0; 9 cage traps along the ditch at 4.7km NE-1 live Geoxus, 1 Ako longi; 4 Museum Specials along ditch at 4.7 km-1 Ako longi, 1 Geoxus, 1 olivaceus; 14 Museum Specials along ditch at 4.7 km NE- 1 Ako longi, 1 BIG Auliscomys, 3 Oryzomys (one of them big and 2 of them juveniles, but the juv female was pregnant); Anita's Museum Specials and Shermans in the forest-0; her 20 Museum Specials along the road 2 Ako longi, 1 Ako oliv., 1 big Auliscomys. Milton and Freddy in the forest caught nothing? or maybe 2 Ako olivaceus. A flock of about 10 parrots went over. Skinned in morning, then left after lunch to Valdivia. "Dead" quila was common to Entre Lagos (30 km W of the Termas of Puyehue, then no more "dead". Collected Chusquea uliginosa at 30 km east of Osorno where Lyn Clark had reported it and couleu together. Stayed at Milton's house; met his parents Jorge and Olga, sightseeing. Watched a video of the eruption of Volcan Lonquimay in 1988, and of the big earthquake in Valdivia in 1960. An impressive engineering action breached a couple of "dams" that the earthquake had formed and that were backing up a river and 3 or 4 lakes all the way to Lago Lacar in Argentina. The impounded water was threatening the city of Valdivia. November 15- Sightseeing around Valdivia, then a "pulmai" or "curanto" of assorted shellfish etc at his parent's home. Then drove to his parent's cabin on the river at Niebla. The quila bamboo there is beginning to bloom but not "dead" yet. Then tea at the farm/tree nursery of Mariana Matthews (Schele) and Ricardo Mendoza. She is a professional photographer. He is an artist and is raising native trees for reforestation. They had had dinner only a couple of days ago with Douglas Tompkins, a wealthy North American business man (Esprit clothes) who has bought tens or hundred of thousands of hectares of forest including Alerces trees below Puerto Montt
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(Fundo Renihue, Fiordo Renihue). His address is 356 Buin, Puerto Montt. He aparently has no "plans", just wants to preserve it, and says that Southern Chile is one of the few places where you can still buy large tracts of undisturbed land at a reasonable price. He seems to have bought much of it from private owners. November 16- Visited the University in the morning and met Solar, Carlos Moreno, Murua, and Luz Gonzales. They say that the quila is beginning to bloom at their study site at San Martin. Luz is now interested in correlating niche-width in Akodon olivaceus with heterozygosity of electrophoretic patterns. Milton showed us 8 specimens of the mystery mouse that is probably Patterson's new Pearsonomys. The zygomatic plate is narrow and very slantly, the teeth Notiomys- like, or Geoxus-like. Some variation in color (black to dark brown), some bellies dark silvery like Akodon longipilis and some almost black like sanborni. One of the 8 specimens had been alive but died while we were at Aguas Calientes. It had a rather fat amd hairy tail. Milton has karyotypes, which are Akodon-like. Left about 1 p.m. for Paso Puyehue. A panorama of snow-capped volcanos. A Norway? rat ran across the road at Nilque. At 4.5 km W of Anticura, after passing 50 km of mostly dead quila (95%), we started seeing lots of live quila and only a little dead. The Chilean Aduana is 6km by road E of Anticura. There is lots of green quila there, some dead quila with flowers, and some green green quila with flowers, so the bloom is spreading east. 2.5 km by road east of the Aduana the bamboo was all couleu, but a couple of more patches of quila until the last one at 5.2km east of the Aduana. Set traps at Paso Puyehue a few hundred m into Argentina in grassy/bushy chaura habitat; lots of snow around. No fresh sign of mice, but a few earth cores; no recent cuttings and no droppings. I set 15 Shermans and 15 Museum Specials; Anita set 4 Shermans and 24 Museum Specials. Weather clear and warm. We set more traps 6,6 km by road east of the summit and 600 ft lower altitude. Grassy road shoulder with bamboo couleu and dombeyi trees. This is a place with earth cores and runways, but not fresh. Anita set 20 traps and I set 5 Shermans, 6 Museum Specials, and 1 jump trap. Then we drove another 0.5 km down the hill and camped. Saw a flock of a dozen or more parrots; Myotis-like bat flying; about 43 kh frequency. Evening clear, calm, mild temperature. November 17- Morning clear, mild. Nothing in the traps. Anita had one tail tip, but I could not identify it. Took some photos on the way down the hill such as along the Rio Blanco and a side stream. Met Javier Bellati along
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Pearson-1992 12 the road. Home 4 p.m. November 18- Bariloche. Mostly sunny, mild. Allen and Sandy Enders came to town. Lorenzo Sympson was meeting two fishermen at the airport. He says that the trout fishing is not great, too much water. November 19- Bariloche. Sunny, mild. With Flia. Enders to top of Cerro Otto, (no snow, amancay lilies coming up, condors, earth cores of Chelemys among amancay) then to Llao Llao (lots of Scotch broom in bloom, rosa mosqueta not yet blooming). November 20.- Bariloche. Clear and mild. After sunrise and before sunset the sky is frequently brassy; dust from Volcan Hudson? November 21- Bariloche. Temp. 51. Visit from Bettinellis and then Fluecks. They had been to a huemul conference at Parque Alerces, but didn't see any huemuls. They reported that the high country of Estancia Fortin Chacabuco has been sold. November 22- Bariloche- Scattered clouds. 52. Drove up to Catedral by the back road from Lago Gutierrez. Saw no blooming bamboo and no young plants near where I found seeds years ago. The gully where I had photographed bamboo years ago is now obscured by young coihue that have grown up along the road. Saw a leaf-cutter ant cnest halfway up this road. There are numerous tuco-tuco diggings in acaena meadows east of the Catedral ski complex. Large areas of dense bamboo-scrub nire. November 23- Bariloche. Clear, temp. 50. Went to Puerto Blest tp check up on the bamboo. Censused along the road between the hotel and El Abuelo; 3 blooming plants on the river side of the road (east) and 2 on the west side. The two big, bloomed clumps in the meadow are gone, bulldosed away as part of the new "Camping" facility. Another big clump is blooming, however, about the middle of the river side of the meadow. It had no new shoots (other plants nearby had new shoots), and yearling culms had fresh blooms but no leaves. The dead clump at the far end of the meadow that we photographed 2 years ago when Peter and Sandy were here had no signs of seedlings under it. There was another, dead-er-looking clump about 25 feet away, however. From the fact that all the branchlets were gone, it seems to have been dead about 5 years or more. it had 3 "seedling" clumps under it or close to it. One of them had 9 culms of graded size up to pencil diameter (this larger one was dead), the next-largest about 6 ft. tall. Another of these seedling clumps had 4 culms graded up to a diameter smaller than a pencil, 3 ft. tall. This largest one was dead. A third clump had 6 culms up to 2 or 3 mm diam., 3 ft. tall. >3 yrs old by leaf-count on the next-largest culm. The dead
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Pearson-1992 13 mother? clump had definitely been dead longer than Peter's clump, and Peter's clump had not bloomed long e enough ago to have produced offspring with 9, 6, and 4 culms. The study clump D2 had no new shoots, 2 yearling shoots. The study clump D1 had 2 yearling shoots, no new shoots. One of the culms that had flowered 2 years ago has long branches still but no seeds or flowers left. The culm is slightly greenish but no leaves. But some marked culms that had bloomed two years ago still have a few green leaves, and one even had a few new new flowers. One of the blooming clumps along the road in the census had only 21 culms, graded in size up to about 12 mm diam. One culm had been broken off, and only one node, the one below the break, had any signs of life. It had flowers. Nearby were two very dead clumps. Met tour guide Sergio on the boat on the way home. November 24.- Temp 55, scattered clouds. Returned the amberat proofs to Fittkau. Christie came by. Paul Sherman's student is coming December 3 to look at Ctenomys sociabilis. Michael says he sees mink dead on the road between here and Confluencia about twice each year. November 25.- Temp. 55. Morning clear then cloudy. Read Monjeau manuscripts. In the afternoon went to Laguna Los Juncos/Esacion Perito Moreno/ Marful's where we did the Reithrodon study. Vegetation is lush, green. Many Reithrodon droppings scattered here and there, but out in the meadow I found no active holes or "colonies". But obviously there are numerous Reithros. A flock of 12 tero-teros screamed at me; Anita saw 5 condors circling the cliff, numerous hare droppings but no hares squashed on the road. Picked up about a liter of owl pellets in the big cave, size about right for Tyto. Saw no owl. Two pairs of buzzard eagles, a family of caranchos, California quail. Saw a fox en route. Cloudy/drizzly. November 26.- Bariloche. 55, cloudy drizzly. Worked with Akodon xanthorhinus skulls at Ecotono with Adrian, Karin, and Mariana. They have at least one skull of an 8-gram individual that died in the trap 8 months later. It seems to fall in the ault/old category. Their numbers up to 50 or 60 xanthorhinus and Eligmodontia on their study grid seem to be OK, but their density calculations do not include a border strip. They suspect a temperature effect on Sherman traps that make them less sensitive at hot (or cold?) temperatures. As many as a dozen unsprung but with with bait gone and droppings inside, yet apparently sensitive when tested. November 27.- Bariloche. Temp. 57, cloudy. To Ecotono in morning. They are ageing xanthorhinus. Gladys Galende
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came by to talk about her viscacha (Lagidium) project. She works with Julietta von Thungen at INTA and with Dora Grigera and Carmen Ubeda in the ecology department of the Univ. Comahue. They have been trying to locate suitable colonies for study: Cullin Manzano, Valle Encantado, Perner's cinder block factory at Dina Huapi, and now they are thinking of Pichi Leufu. So far the amount of profitable field observations seems to have been negligible. Sra. Sbriller at INTA has at least identified plant fragments in droppings; mostly grasses. In the evening went to a SNAP meeting which ended up as a travelogue for Copan, Tical, and Ecuador. November 28.- Bariloche. Temp 58, clear, then clouded up in afternoon. Went up to Refugio Neumeyer in Chalhuaco. The floor of the lenga forest in many places has thousands of seedlings coming up- just the two cotyledon leaves so far, but they may well be lenga. Perhaps it was a good seed year and a good wet spring for sprouting. There is very little understory except scattered Ribes, Berberis, and, of course, amancay lilies. The floor is frequently "bare" except for the scum of fallen, plastered lenga leaves. The one clump of bamboo that we know of on the whole mountain, about 300 yards above the Refugio between the trail to the lakes and the stream to the left, was in bad shape. About half of the culms had been bitten off 2 or 3 feet above ground level, and remaining clumps of branches had been eaten almost down to the culm. Some of the lower nodes on some of the bitten-off culms were sending out shoots for new green branches. It looked like the work of hares. We found one clump of hare fur lying in the trail, and saw one hare in the nire scrub along the road on the way out, but did not see hare droppings. With 2 or 3 feet of snow on the ground, that single clump of bamboo might have been the only green thing edible for miles around. November 29.- Bariloche. Overcast, some drizzle until evening when it cleared. Talked with Adam Hajduk the archeologist. When he camped with Damiana Curzio near Cueva Traful III, there were so many mice that they ate holes in the tent and messed up the cooking supplies. The native with them set a teeter-totter water trap and caught many mice. Adam working in a rock shelter had a wild mouse come up to him and walk onto his outstretched hand. About 10 years ago; species unknown. He also had two mouse skins saved by Dolly Frey from her place across the lake (not La Lonha): one Chelemys and one Irenomys. There is lots of high country with big lengas. Name Paso Coihue. Went to Adrian's study area on the airport road at dark with Karin and Mariana with the night vision
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goggles. Sky clear, not windy, quarter moon. Didn't get dark until about 10. The girls wandered with the goggles over their study area, which has about 50 xanthurhinus and Eligmodontia on it right now, and saw nothing, not even hares or Reithrodon. I wandered with jacklight and saw nothing. A hare was squashed on the road while we were there. November 30.- Bariloche. Morning 50, clear. To Ecotono in the morning, then to Cueva Traful in the afternoon. No hares DOR but saw one. Lots of water in the Rio Limay. Cueva Traful unchanged, no fresh owl pellets. The cipreses in the Traful Valley are impressively abundant and seem to be reproducing. There are still tuco-tucos (sociabilis) along the road 10 km N of Nahuel Huapi. We listened twice but heard none. I don't remember ever hearing this population sing. Abel Basti and the Fluecks came by in the evening. Werner says that the red deer use lenga forest for shelter but is not sure that they find much to eat there. December 1- Bariloche. Temp 49, clear. Adrian and company captured a dozen mice on their grid on the airport road, plus 3 Akodon xanthurhinus and 1 Eligmodontia with about 40 Museum Specials and possibly some Shermans in an area farther out toward the airport. We dissected these, pus some Oryzomys and Abrothrix longipilis collected by the girl doing an impact study of the Llao Llao golf course. One of the two Abrothrix was an aborting female. All pretty stinky. Dinner at Christie's restaurant (Villegas) with Javier Perez Calvo, who is in forensic medicine with the Neuquen police. He hopes to go to the states soon to learn PCR techniques with the FBI. Eileen Lacey, a student of Paul Sherman's, is coming soon to study tuco-tuco (sociabilis) behavior. Dec 2.- Bariloche temp. 58. Marcela Manacorda, who lives in Bariloche, came by. She is a friend of Laura Madoery, formerly of Mendoza Roig's group. Marcela seems to have been seeking information about Ctenomys sociabilis. Also came by: Adrian Monjeau and Mariana Losada seeking CONICET sponsorship for Mariana; and Werner and Joanna Flueck. December 3.- Bariloche. Breakfast with Javier Perez Calvo, then left about 10 a.m. for the south. Between El Bolson and Epuyen there are immense areas of rosa mosqueta; lots of blackberry as well. I was impressed again with the lush grazing in the valley that runs north from Tecka (Estancia Tecka). They even have huge fields of sweet clover and oats. Camped 4.1 km west of Route 40 on the road (route 19) to Rio Pico and Lago Vintter. We stopped on a side road, a dirt track that had been bulldozed to 50m right-of-way but then never
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improved. Fenced on both sides. Behind the fences was brushy steppe (neneo, Senecio, Calafate, bunchgrass, Calceolaria, but in the right-of-way (mostly stoney) were a few calafate bushes, small isalnds of Rumex, and scattered low grass plants and herbs. I put 20 Shermans and 20 Museum Specials alternating through the brushy steppe. Anita put 10 Shermans and 20 Museum Specials and 1 jump trap along a fence and under some Calafates in the right of way. Sky clear, temperature mild, wind moderate. This locality is 30 km W Jose de San Martin, Chubut. Temperature mild. Counted 5 recently squashed hares all day. December 4.- 30 km W. Jose de San Martin. Light frost on the windshield and sleeping bags. Slight overcast, At 6:30 a.m. my traps had 1 Eligmo morgani and 1 Akodon xanthorhinus. Anita had 1 Eligmo and 1 Notiomys edwardsii! 1 small fox skull. Smelled skunk during the night, birds seen or heard were seed snipe, Zonotrichia, pechocolorado, ibis, geese (male white female brown). Saw new digging of a tuco-tuco near the car and Anita heard another nearby (tuc-a-tuc). The Notiomys was crosswise in a Museum Special set in front of a hole in very sandy soil under a big low clump of calafate (Berberis) that also sheltered some Senecio and Calceolaria. The upper incisors were broken, perhaps from biting the killing wire on the trap. One front leg had a healed scar and slightly swollen paw. We immediately set 10 more Museum Specials in the immediate vicinity of the catch, but caught nothing before we left at about 9:30. The mouse was caught in front of a hole, and the Berberis clump had light sandy soil piled around the roots as though a tuco had been there. At least two tucos lived within 30m. Saw no parasites. Left about 10:30 for south. Stopped at Nueva Lubecka- a clump of cottonwoods with a stone Communications building with people, chickens, ...as before. Bushy steppe around it. The country quite variable, sometimes bunchgrass, sometimes bushy steppe, sometimes acres of blooming cola de Pichi (Nassauvia), sometimes incredibly overgrazed. 15 km S of Los Tamariscos the road cuts through some hard rock so that there were piles of good viscacha habitat along the road for a few hundred meters. We looked and found Reithrodon droppings and a hystricomorph dropping, probably guinea pig. But we saw no guinea pigs. On the stretch between Rio Mayo and Perito Moreno we saw one rhea, the only one so far. No guanacos. Lots of sheep. Got to Perito Moreno about 6 p.m.without seeing anything that looked like an ashfall. Nothing. 6 squashed hares. Then drove west along the lake and put
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Pearson-1992 17 traps south of the road at about 30 km west of Perito Moreno. Here there was drifted ash looking like desert sand. It had drifted into gulleys, but nowhere was it deep. It seems to come in two colors, dark, on top, and pale, below. The pale is slightly larger grain and definitely lighter, almost pumice. I rather guess that it blows off and leaves the dark "sand" on top. when put into a glass of water, a layer of pumice floats on top but after a few hours everything has sunk to the bottom and the water is almost clear. We put traps in what would be mistaken for sandy desert with scattered bushes of duraznillo (Colliguaya), calafate, a ground cushion like a very spiny yareta with yellow composite blossoms, etc. Lots of bird tracks in the sand, hare tracks very abundant, Reithrodon droppings widespread but not particularly abundant at any one place. Temperature very mild, no wind. I put out 21 Shermans and 22 Museum Specials. Anita put out 30 Museum Specials.. Camped in a huge gravel pit 7.7 km nearer town. The day's count of recently squashed rabbits was 8, but there is very little traffic on the Rio Mayo to Perito Moreno road (unpaved; only one car passed). Night very mild, no wind. December 5. Heavy rain during night, but not cold. Lake water not cold. Many Museum Specials were sprung by the rain. No standing water. My line had 3 Eligmodontia in Shermans and 1 in Museum Special. Anita's line had 6 Eligmos and 1 gecko.. All of the mice were reproductively active. When the ash fell on the buchgrasses, it sank down in between the culms. Subsequently it has blown or washed away around the plant but is retained in the center of the bunch. There may be a windrift of ash on one side. None of the vegetation, however, shows signs of damage. In a few places along the lake we see fields of sandy hummocks held down by patches of the very spiny non-yareta cushion plant; surely too old to have grown since last year's eruption. It has been volcanic around here for a long time. Across the road from our gravel pit is a 60-foot cliff of ash with sparse stone inclusions of all sizes from pebbles to rocks. A strong wind came up during the morning, partly sunny. The surf breaking on the beach is full of 1-mm pumice. It floats to the top of a bucket of water. Last night's traps were 7.9 km east of Estancia La Ascension (on the map). After skinning we drove to Los Antiguos and had lunch in a hotel there. The manager had two jars of ash from Hudson, dark and light. He said that they were layered like a sandwich. When I asked him what happened to all the ash, he said that they scraped it
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Pearson-1992 19 Anita's MS in the bunchgrass steppe: 1 Reithro, 1 Eligmo, 1 Phyllotis, 1 Ako xantho. The Total catch was: 4 Ako xantho, 7 Reithro, 11 Eligmo, and 8 Phyllotis= 30 (plus 1 scorpion that fell out of a Sherman when the bait was dumped). Total 128 traps = trap success 23%. The bushy steppe study area has maybe 35% ground cover with the following in order of "abundance": duraznillo (Colliguaya), bunchgrass, neneo, yellow- flowered-legume-without-thorns (Adesmia propinqua?, emarginata?), Schinus ?polygamus?). Note no Senecio. NO recent sheep droppings, but lots of hare and Reithro droppings. Also cut seed heads of grasses. I should have assumed sheep dropped these if there had been recent sheep grazing, but there has not been any grazing for a year or more. The hare/sheep/Reithro droppings tend to accumulate together in small depressions etc., from ?wind? None of the sheep droppings are recent, and no cow and a few very old horse droppings, so not grazed recently. The bunchgrass steppe seems to have been burned a few years back. In order of "abundance": bunchgrass, neneo, duraznillo, and Berberis. Took photos. A few big Berberis bushes, very thorny. Spent most of the day dissecting and skinning. Did two transects across the bunchgrass desert to count tracks in the sand, since yesterday was so windy and the slate was clean. One line of 53 yards intersected 4 birds, 2 hares, 2 mice, and 1 pichi armadillo. Another line of 137 yards intersected 1bird, 39 mice, 5 hares. In some places there were mouse tracks everywhere. To catch so many Reithros in Shermans and snap traps indicates that there must be lots of them (and there are lots of Reithro droppings). I picked up my old trap line, but reset 12 cage traps in the bushy alley, mostly under Adesmia bushes. Anita rebaited her 6 MS and 6 Shermans near camp= 24 traps. Some sprinkles of rain during the day, moderate wind. December 7.- Estancia La Aurora. Morning almost clear. moon almost full. Anita's 6 MS had 2 baby Eligmos (5.6 and 6.5 g), My 12 cage traps had 1 Phyllotis and 1 Eligmo, and Anita's 6 Shermans had 2 Eligmo. and 2 Phyllotis. Saw 2 martinetta tinamous, and have been hearing them. Today was mostly overcast, some sprinkles of rain. Left about 9 a.m. On the way out to the main road saw a skunk, who challenged us, and 2 seed snipe (Thinocorus). Estancia La Aurora campsite was 4.4 km east of Los Antiguos. Took photos of our other trapsite which actually is 32 km W of Perito Moreno. The vegetation was Senecio, duraznillo, bunchgrass, spiny
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"yareta", and the big thornbush with the sperical galls (Schinus). Tadpoles in a stream at about 30 km W Perito Moreno. On the drive (50km) from Los Antiguos to Perito Moreno we saw 5 freshly squashed hares. On the unpaved stretch from Perito Moreno to 5 de Mayo, 130 km, 3 hrs, two cars passed. Saw no rheas or guanacos. The farthest south Rosa Mosqueta was along the road near Facundo, Chubut Prov. 1 big hairy armadillo squashed near Gobernador Costa. Camped again at the same site 30 km W Jose de San Martin and plastered the Berberis mounds where the Notiomys was caught, and nearby. Anita put 11 small Shermans and 10 big Sher mans, and I put 12 cage traps. Night cool, not windy. December 8- 30 km W Jose de San Martin. Light frost on car and sleeping bags. Anita's traps held 1 toad. My traps had 1 Eligmo, 1 Ak xantho, and 1 smallish tuco that looked like haigi; not saved. Charlie MacKinnon in Esquel said that this locality is high, probably 800- 900 m above sea level. Left at 7 a.m. for Esquel. 2 squashed skunks en route. Flamingos above Tecka. Stopped at Charlie and Nora Mackinnon's in Esquel. He keeps his own weather records and says it has been the wettest 12 months in many years, and that good rains in October during the growing season have made the hillsides lush. But the sheep business is awful. "Those poor chaps are suffering". He says that the Senguerr, Estancia La Laurita,and Gobernador Costa are bitter cold in winter. He says Benetton now owns El Maiten, Leleque, Pilcaniyeu, and Alicura and, I think, Tecka, and that they are going to concentrate on sheep, not cattle. Then back to Bariloche. The first Colletia and Palo Pichi were noted at Leleque/Maiten, the first radal near the Cholila turnoff; Cipres there also. The first Notro (Embothrium) at Epuyen. The day was mostly overcast or broken clouds. December 9.- Bariloche. Mild, not windy, Dinner with Dr. Eileen Lacey and her field assistant, John Wieczcrek. Michael Christie showed them the Ctenomys sociabilis colonies up high on Estancia Fortin Chacabuco, and they have located several others between the highway and the Rio Limay just south of Rincon Grande. Sounds like near our roadside population 10 km N Nahuel Huapi. They have heard them vocalize, seen them, but have not yet tried live-trapping them. They are using a trap design successful with naked mole rats.
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Pearson-1992 21 December 10- Conference with Gustavo Iglesias re. S.N.A.P. (Sociedad Naturalista Andino Patagonica). Lunch with Michael and Patricia. Nature Conservancy has expressed interest in their group. Eleda Bettinelli came by, and Werner and Joanna. The new Peace Corp person planning an Interpretative Center for Puerto Blest is Tamara Olson. Ellen and Glenn, her predecessors who left abruptly, apparently "didn't work out". Met the photographer Jorge Olaverry at his exhibit in the Natural History Museum. December 11.- Bariloche. Temp. mild, overcast all day. Visited Ecotono in the morning. They had pellets from the airport, but tiny, with bird remains and two lower jaws of ?Ako. xantho? Pygmy owl? or kestrel? The stomach of the Notiomys contained only pieces of small arthropods, including a few small legs. Some white "meat", no recognizable plant parts. December 12.- Bariloche. Cloudy, mild. Drove up Cerro Otto to our bamboo patches. The meadow along the road is lush with tall green grass, dandelions in seed, etc. Lots of tuco diggings. A few clumps of bamboo with several but not all of the culms dead, severed at the rhizome or above the rhizome by tucos. Note that they die if they have been severed, even if there is a significant piece of rhizome still attached. The marked clump in the woods (A2) had a couple of dozen new green shoots. Al out in the open had no new green shoots although it did have two live yearlings, so it still has the potential to produce some more shoots. Michael Christie came by in the evening. He had been trapping with Eileen Lacey while they caught a sociabilis along the Limay. The traps are wire mesh with an electric beeper that goes off when the trap shuts. He also brought an adult male Reithrodon carcase that he had found dead near the trapping place. No visible external damage except blood from the mouth. When skinned, however, it had broken back, thoracic punctures, and broken skull. December 13.- Bariloche. Broken clouds, windy. Drove to the Llao Llao Peninsula and looked at bamboo. Lots of new shoots on most plants. More limbs fallen. December 14.- Bariloche. Temp. 53. clear. Worked on Volcan Hudson report. Dinner with Jorge Vallerini and Patricia. He says that INTA has done exclosures in steppe habitat and that the result was that the existing plants got bigger. Period. December 15.- Bariloche Temp. 56, clear. Went to INTA and talked with Carlos Lopez about the Hudson eruption. He agrees that there must have been a lot of eruptions in recent years and that ash-in-the-air might be the "normal" condition. Met the new Peace Corp volunteer,
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Pearson-1992 22 Tamara Olson, concerned with the Puerto Blest interpretive center. Also the parkguard, El Oso, whom we met in the mallin at Lago Guillelmo a couple of years ago. Michael Christie has some buzzard-eagle pellets (Geranoaetus) from Lacey's tuco area that contain incisors of a big tuco-tuco (or viscacha?). He also saw and photographed a very "tame" fox there. We drove down to Tamara's study area in the afternoon. It is right at our tuco site 10 km S Nahuel Huapi. They are camped in willows at the base of the hills west of the road, and were watching tucos east of the road, but we did not intrude on them. We gathered some Adesmia at Nahuel Huapi that fits well with Dimitri's boronioides, but its foliage is glandular-sticky and the ladder-leaves are longer than in the Santa Cruz plant. So the Santa Cruz species must be one of the other 53 Patagonian species, maybe emarginata? or trijuga? Abel Basti said that the library here has a xerox of a report by Roth Kughel, 1915, on wild fires in the Bariloche area. December 16.- Bariloche. Rain overnight, morning cloudy. "Tanta pobresa. Dios por aqui no paso". The seedling lengas? from Chalhuaco have not put out a big enough leaf yet to identify them.
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Pearson-1992 23 Index - 1992 Aguas Calientes 5 Airport 2,15 Akodon xantho 3,4,13 Amberat 5 Antillanca 9 Ants 12 Armadillo 18,20 Auliscomys 5 Bamboo 2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10 11,12,13,14,21 Basti 4,22 Bats 8,11 Beetles 9 Blackberry 16 Buba 2 Cerro Otto 2 Chalhuaco 14 Chelemys 2,9,12,14 Cipres 15,20 Climate 1,2,3,4,5,20 Colletia 20 Condors 12,13 D'Amgerlcola 2 DinaHuapi 3 Doves 7,10 Elk 4,5 Enders 12 Estancia La Asencion 18 Estancia La Aurora 18 Euneomys 2 Flamingo 20 Flueck 1 Fox 13,16,22 Galende 14 Gecko 17 Geranoaetus 22 Guanaco 17,20 Guigna 1 Guinea Pig 17 Hajduk 14 Hare 3,4,13,14,15,15 16,17,18,19,20 Herrera 1 Hudson 3,12,17,18,22 Huemul 1 Irenomys 6,14 Jose de San Martin 16,20 Lacey 15,21,22 Lago Buenos Aires 17 La Veranada 4 Leeches 9 Lenga 14,22 Lizards 5 Llao Llao 3,22 Lopez 22 Los Antiguos 18 Manacorda 15 Marful 4 Matthews 10 Mendoza (Ricardo) 10 Mink 13 Monjeau 4 Murua 11 Mus 5 Notiomys 16,20,21 Notro 21 Olaverry 21 Olson 21,22 Oryzomys 10 Owls 2,3,4,13 Palo Pichi 20 Parrots 10,11 Paso Coihue 14 Paso Puyehue 5,11 Pearsonomys 11 Pellets 2,4,13 Perez Calvo 15 Perito Moreno 17
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