Adam W. Ferguson

Field Museum of Natural History · Mammals

Zoos and natural history museums are both collections-based institutions with important missions in biodiversity research and education. Animals in zoos are a repository and living record of the world's biodiversity, whereas natural history museums are a permanent historical record of snapshots of biodiversity in time. Surprisingly, despite signifi...

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need to strengthen national surveillance systems to protect a globally connected world. In low-income and middle-income countries, zoonotic disease surveillance has advanced considerably in the past two decades. However, surveillance efforts often prioritise urban and adjacent rural communities. Communities...

For more than 130 years, the type locality of the Plains Spotted Skunk, Spilogale putorius interrupta (Rafinesque, 1820) has been accepted to be along the upper Missouri River. The species’ description was based on a specimen observed by Constantine S. Rafinesque during his 1818 exploration of the Ohio River Valley, but Rafinesque never ventured in...

Four species of spotted skunks (Carnivora, Mephitidae, Spilogale) are currently recognized: Spilogale angustifrons, S. gracilis, S. putorius, and S. pygmaea. Understanding species boundaries within this group is critical for effective conservation given that regional populations or subspecies (e.g., S. p. interrupta) have experienced significant po...

en The paucity of studies on Egyptian mongoose Herpestes ichneumon (Linnaeus, 1758) in Africa highlights the need for baseline information on the geographic range of this species as well as factors that may determine its distribution. This study presents eight novel locality records of H. ichneumon in Laikipia County, central Kenya, addresses quest...

The paucity of studies on Egyptian mongoose Herpestes ichneumon (Linnaeus, 1758) in Africa highlights the need for baseline information on the geographic range of this species as well as factors that may determine its distribution. This study presents eight novel locality records of H. ichneumon in Laikipia County, central Kenya, addresses question...

Despite being nearly 10 months into the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, the definitive animal host for SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), the causal agent of COVID-19, remains unknown. Unfortunately, similar problems exist for other betacoronaviruses, and no vouchered specimens exist to corroborate host spec...

Four species of spotted skunks (Carnivora, Mephitidae, Spilogale ) are currently recognized: Spilogale angustifrons , S. gracilis , S. putorius , and S. pygmaea . Understanding species boundaries within this group is critical for effective conservation given that regional populations or subspecies (e.g., S. p. interrupta ) have experienced signific...

The global environment is faced with growing threats from anthropogenic disturbance, propelling the Earth into a 6th mass extinction. For the world’s mammals, this is reflected in the fact that 25% of species are threatened with some risk of extinction. During this time of species loss and environmental alteration, the world’s natural history museu...

Background An estimated 59,000 people die from rabies annually, with 99% of those deaths attributable to bites from domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). This preventable Neglected Tropical Disease has a large impact across continental Africa, especially for rural populations living in close contact with livestock and wildlife. Mass vaccinations...

https://www.researchgate.net/deref/https%3A%2F%2Facademic.oup.com%2Fbioscience%2Farticle%2Fdoi%2F10.1093%2Fbiosci%2Fbiaa064%2F5857068

Small African carnivores (<15 kg) make up 35% of extant small carnivores worldwide, and eight of the world’s 13 terrestrial carnivore families have representative species meeting this criterion in Africa. In spite of this diversity, studies on larger species seem to dominate African carnivore research. To both quantify research bias and highlight k...

We assessed the genetic variability of the eastern spotted skunk (Spilogale putorius) throughout the range of the species, with an emphasis on the potentially endangered plains spotted skunk subspecies (S. p. interrupta). Tissue samples from a variety of sources including field surveys, state agencies, and museum tissue collections allowed a detail...

The molecular phylogeny of extant genets (Carnivora, Viverridae, Genetta ) was generated using all species with the exception of the Ethiopian genet Genetta abyssinica . Herein, we provide the first molecular phylogenetic assessment of G. abyssinica using molecular sequence data from multiple mitochondrial genes generated from a recent record of th...

We analyzed phylogeographic patterns in the western spotted skunk, Spilogale gracilis Merriam, 1890 (Carnivora: Mephitidae) in relation to historical events associated with Pre-Pleistocene Divergence (PPD) and Quaternary climate change (QCC) using mitochondrial DNA from 97 individuals distributed across Western North America. Divergence times were...

The American hog-nosed skunk (Conepatus leuconotus) is an understudied mesocarnivore for which no extensive ecological studies have been conducted. We radio-collared 29 skunks (15 male, 14 female) at a site in west-central Texas, U.S.A. and used data from 14 (5 male, 9 female) to determine patterns of home range and spatial organization. Home range...

Understanding historical influences of climate and physiographic barriers in shaping patterns of biodiversity remains limited for many regions of the world. For mammals of continental Africa, phylogeographic studies, particularly for West African lineages, implicate both geographic barriers and climate oscillations in shaping small mammal diversity...

Many species of large wildlife have declined drastically worldwide. These reductions often lead to profound shifts in the ecology of entire communities and ecosystems. However, the effects of these large-wildlife declines on other taxa likely hinge upon both underlying abiotic properties of these systems and on the types of secondary anthropogenic...

Kingdon, J., D. Happold, T. Butynski, M. Hoffmann, M. Happold, and J. Kalina (eds.). 2013. Mammals of Africa (6 volumes). Bloomsbury Publishing, London, United Kingdom, 3,720 pp. Price (hardbound), $940.00. Kingdon, J., D. Happold, M. Hoffmann, T. Butynski, M. Happold, and J. Kalina (eds.). 2013. Mammals of Africa. Volume I: Introductory Chapters a...

For more than 100 years, the US government has conducted lethal control of native wildlife, to benefit livestock producers and to enhance game populations, especially in the western states. Since 2000, Wildlife Services (WS), an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, has killed 2 million native mammals, predominantly 20 species of carnivores,...

Annual conferences of The Wildlife Society (TWS) are important venues to advance wildlife science research through the presentation of papers and posters. However, no longitudinal analysis has been conducted of publication rates of TWS conference presentations. We classified all conference presentations from 1994 to 2006 by publication status, publ...

We use a combination of cytochrome b sequence data and karyological evidence to confirm the presence of Mus indutus and Mus minutoides in Botswana. Our data include sampling from five localities from across the country, including one site in northwestern Botswana where both species were captured in syntopy. Additionally, we find evidence for two mi...

These are the tables (1 and 2) and Appendix.

We assessed the global conservation status of small carnivores in Africa based on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. African small carnivores represent about 34% of extant small carnivores worldwide. Familial diversity is intermediate, with four of the world's nine families represented (Herpestidae: 47% of African species; Mustelidae: 20%; Na...

Metagenomic methods provide an experimental approach to inform the relationships between hosts and their microbial inhabitants. Previous studies have provided the conceptual realization that microbiomes are dynamic among hosts and the intimacy of relation between micro- and macroorganisms. Here, we present an intestinal microflora community analysi...

We report the results of a two-month bat survey from 33 different sampling localities in the country of Ecuador conducted in the summer of 2006. Biologists from Angelo State University and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador participated in this survey that was designed to collect information on bats from a diverse set of habitats and l...

The Koanaka Hills (also known as Nqcumtsa Hills) are part of a series of dolomitic uplifts in western Ngamiland, Botswana. These localised formations create contrasting habitats to the surrounding environment and provide some of the only topographic relief among the flat semi-arid bushveld characterising this region. As such, these dolomitic uplift...

We reevaluate vouchered records of Peropteryx leucoptera in Ecuador with regard to the morphologicallysimilar and newly described species, P. pallidoptera. The western-most distributional occurrence of P. pallidoptera isdocumented. Additionally, we describe a new record of P. leucoptera collected at Palma Roja, Cuyabeno Faunistic Reserve inSucumbío...

For solitary carnivores a polygynous mating system should lead to predictable patterns in space-use dynamics. Females should be most influenced by resource distribution and abundance, whereas polygynous males should be strongly influenced by female spatial dynamics. We gathered mean annual home-range-size estimates for male and female bobcats (Lynx...

Investigadores que usan muestreos de cercas de deriva y trampas de hoyo han analizado algunos problemas con la técnica. Un problema no cuantificado es el efecto que los vertebrados depredadores pueden tener en los animales capturados en las trampas. Utilizamos cámaras Deer Cam® y estaciones de huellas para estimar la cantidad y diversidad de depred...

Members of the cerambycid genus Moneilema Linnaeus are typically considered cacti-boring specialists of the plant genus Opuntia Miller (Cactaceae) (Hovore et al. 1987; Linsley and Chemsak 1997). However, recent evidence indicates that Moneilema species may possess greater plasticity in host plants than previously thought (Lingafelter 2003; Salazar...

Amphibians and reptiles were surveyed using standard sampling techniques at Camp Mabry, Austin, Texas in 2004 and 2005 as part of the Texas National Guard's biological inventory of the property. A total of 555 individuals representing 20 species were documented including six anurans, five turtles, four lizards, and five snakes. Amphibians compromis...

Pitfall trapping is a common technique for sampling small vertebrates (Jenkins et al. 2003; Sutton et al. 1999). As with most live trapping methods, trapped animals might incur mortality through desiccation (Jenkins et al. 2003), drowning (Aubry and Stringer 2000), starvation (Yunger et al. 1992), exposure (Padget-Flohr and Jennings 2001), and incr...

Vita. Thesis (M.S.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2005. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-57). Appendices: leaves 50-53.