Abstract We studied diets of feral cats (Felis catus), dingoes (Canis familiaris) and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in desert environments in north-eastern South Australia by analysing prey remains in opportunistically-collected scats. Four major landscapes were sampled (Simpson Desert, Sturt Stony Desert, Strzelecki Desert – Cooper Creek and Diamantina River) which yielded 238 cat scats, 298 dingo scats and ten fox scats. There was some overlap in prey eaten by cats and dingoes, but their diets were significantly different because cats typically ate small prey such as small mammals, small lizards and birds, while dingoes ate larger prey like domestic cattle, kangaroos and large reptiles. The few fox scats collected suggested fox diets were more similar to cat than dingo diets. Scat composition also differed significantly between landscapes irrespective of predator, with landscapes differing both in diversity and relative abundances of prey consumed. We detected several species in scats that are threatened with extinction either nationally (dusky hopping mouse, Notomys fuscus, and crest-tailed mulgara, Dasycercus cristicauda) or regionally (desert mouse, Pseudomys desertor, and long-haired rat, Rattus villosissimus), adding valuable knowledge to the distribution of these mammals and demonstrating the value of predator scat analyses in mammal surveys of Australian deserts.

中文翻译：

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南澳大利亚东北部沙漠中哺乳动物食肉动物的饮食

摘要 我们通过分析机会收集的粪便中的猎物遗骸，研究了南澳大利亚东北部沙漠环境中野猫 (Felis catus)、澳洲野狗 (Canis fusionis) 和赤狐 (Vulpes vulpes) 的饮食。对四个主要景观（辛普森沙漠、斯图尔特石沙漠、Strzelecki 沙漠 - 库珀溪和迪亚曼蒂纳河）进行了采样，产生了 238 只猫粪、298 只野狗和 10 只狐狸粪。猫和澳洲野狗吃的猎物有一些重叠，但它们的饮食明显不同，因为猫通常吃小型猎物，如小型哺乳动物、小蜥蜴和鸟类，而澳洲野狗则吃较大的猎物，如家牛、袋鼠和大型爬行动物。收集到的少数狐狸粪便表明，狐狸的饮食比野狗的饮食更类似于猫。无论捕食者如何，景观之间的粪便成分也存在显着差异，景观在多样性和消耗的猎物的相对丰度方面都不同。我们在全国范围内（暗跳鼠、Notomys fuscus 和嵴尾鲉、Dasycercus cristicauda）或区域范围内（沙漠鼠、Pseudomys Desertor 和长毛鼠Rattus villosissimus）中检测到几种濒临灭绝的粪便物种，并补充说这些哺乳动物的分布的宝贵知识，并证明了捕食者粪便分析在澳大利亚沙漠哺乳动物调查中的价值。