Behaviour of the Tayra Eira barbara near Medellín, Colombia: preliminary data from a video-capturing survey

Based on 11 video clips (234 seconds total duration) obtained with an effort of 994 camera-trap-days, we describe some natural history observations of the Tayra Eira barbara in a small reserve about 30 km southeast of Medellin, the second largest urban centre in Colombia. Territory marking, foraging in pairs, defecating, and escape behaviours were detected. We also estimated daily activity pattern using video footage. This conservative approach allowed us to suggest that E. barbara exhibits two activity peaks, one around midday (13–15h) and one just before evening (17–18h); also, a weak peak of activity was observed in the morning (07–09h). We encourage the use of long-term automatic video-trapping instead of still image trapping in order to acquire more detailed natural history and behaviour observations.