Agoutis, Dasyprocta spp., are medium‐sized rodents distributed in Neotropical region. Their diet is usually described as granivorous/frugivorous, and agoutis are recognised as important seed dispersers. Here, we present two spatially and temporally independent records of egg predation by Azara’s agouti, Dasyprocta azarae, in fragments of Cerrado savanna forest. In both cases, the agoutis ingested quail eggs that had been placed in artificial nests at ground level, 100 m from the edge of the forest. As Dasyprocta is a herbivorous rodent, this predatory behaviour is unexpected and may represent an opportunistic foraging strategy. These observations provide important new insights into the feeding biology of agoutis and highlight the value of camera traps as a tool for the collection of data on the behavioural ecology and natural history of vertebrates in general.

中文翻译：

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摄影机陷阱通过在巴西中部自由散布Azara的刺鼠Dasyprocta azarae Lichtenstein（1823年）来揭示人工巢的捕食

Agoutis，Dasyprocta spp。，是分布在新热带地区的中型啮齿动物。他们的饮食通常被描述为肉食性的/食肉性的，而刺豚鼠被认为是重要的种子分散剂。在这里，我们介绍了Carado稀树草原森林片段中Azara的刺鼠Dasyprocta azarae捕食卵的两个时空独立记录。在这两种情况下，刺豚鼠都摄取鹌鹑蛋，这些鹌鹑蛋被放置在离森林边缘100 m的地面上的人工巢中。作为Dasyprocta是一种草食性啮齿动物，这种掠食性行为是意料之外的，可能代表机会性觅食策略。这些观察结果为对食虫的进食生物学提供了重要的新见解，并突显了相机诱集器作为收集有关脊椎动物行为生态学和自然史的数据的工具的价值。