Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Mustelidae > Aonyx > Aonyx capensis

Aonyx capensis (African Clawless Otter; swamp otter; African small-clawed otter)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The Cameroon clawless otter (Aonyx capensis congicus) is a subspecies of the African clawless otter in the family Mustelidae. It is found in Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and possibly Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Rwanda, or Uganda. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical mangrove forests, subtropical or tropical swamps, subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, subtropical or tropical moist shrubland, subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland, rivers, intermittent rivers, shrub-dominated wetlands, swamps, freshwater lakes, intermittent freshwater lakes, freshwater marshes, intermittent freshwater marshes, freshwater spr
View Wikipedia Record: Aonyx capensis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
2
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
19
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 6.38
EDGE Score: 2
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  29.597 lbs (13.425 kg)
Birth Weight [2]  2.315 lbs (1.05 kg)
Female Weight [1]  27.117 lbs (12.30 kg)
Male Weight [1]  32.077 lbs (14.55 kg)
Weight Dimorphism [1]  18.3 %
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates)
Diet - Ectothermic [3]  20 %
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  80 %
Forages - Ground [3]  100 %
Female Maturity [2]  1 year
Male Maturity [2]  1 year
Gestation [2]  63 days
Litter Size [2]  3
Maximum Longevity [2]  14 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [1]  36 inches (91 cm)
Weaning [2]  53 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Cape Floristic Region South Africa No
Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania No
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Guinean Forests of West Africa Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Togo No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Crocodylus niloticus (Nile crocodile)[6]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Cloeoascaris spinicollis[7]
Prudhoella rhodesiensis[7]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4DIET AND CONSERVATION STATUS OF CAPE CLAWLESS OTTERS IN EASTERN ZIMBABWE, J. R. A. BUTLER and J. T. DU TOIT, IUCN Otter Spec. Group Bull. 11 1995
♦ 5Aonyx capensis, Serge Larivière, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 671, pp. 1–6 (2001)
♦ 6The Serengeti food web: empirical quantification and analysis of topological changes under increasing human impact, Sara N. de Visser, Bernd P. Freymann and Han Olff, Journal of Animal Ecology 2011, 80, 484–494
♦ 7Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0