An Audacious Maneuver: First Record of <i>Leopardus guigna</i> in the Marine Environment

Abstract

The Güiña (Leopardus guigna), the smallest Neotropical feline, inhabits central and southern Chile and western Argentina. This communication reports the first documented instance of a güiña swimming in a marine environment, observed in the Refugio Channel, which separates Refugio Island from the mainland in Northern Patagonia, Chile. In April 2023, a local resident recorded video footage of a güiña swimming near the eastern shore of the channel, emerging from the water, shaking off, and climbing a tree to groom itself. This observation suggests that the güiña might use the seacoast when searching for food, particularly during periods of low terrestrial prey availability during the winter. The ability of the güiña to adapt to such environments underscores the species’ ecological flexibility, previously undocumented in this context, and highlights the need for integrating marine resources into the species’ conservation strategies. The video’s quality is limited due to the simplicity of the recording device, but it provides crucial visual evidence of this behavior.

Keywords

• Güiña
• <i>Leopardus guigna</i>
• swimming behavior
• Patagonia
• marine environments
• conservation