The bush dog Speothos venaticus occurs in Central and South America (DeMatteo & Loiselle, Reference DeMatteo and Loiselle2008), is a strict carnivore (Beisiegel & Zuercher, Reference Beisiegel and Zuercher2005; Lima et al., Reference Lima, Jorge and Dalponte2009) and is considered the smallest and most social Neotropical canid (Azevedo et al., Reference Azevedo, Lemos, Costa, Rocha and Freitas Junior2016; Oliveira et al., Reference Oliveira, Michalski, Botelho, Michalski, Calouro and Desbiez2018). Previous research has examined the conservation status, distribution and ecological requirements of this species (DeMatteo & Loiselle, Reference DeMatteo and Loiselle2008; Oliveira, Reference Oliveira2009; Michalski, Reference Michalski2010; Ferreira et al., Reference Ferreira, Oliveira, Paula, Rodrigues and Carmo2015; Lima et al., Reference Lima, Jorge, Jorge and Morato2015; Jorge et al., Reference Jorge, Beisiegel, Lima, Jorge, Leite-Pitman, de Paula, Chiarello, de Aguiar, Cerquera, de Melo, Rodrigues and da Silva2018). Nevertheless, because of its elusive behaviour, low density, fragmented occurrence and large home range, the biology of the bush dog is poorly known (DeMatteo & Kochanny, Reference DeMatteo and Kochanny2004; Michalski & Pérez, Reference Michalski and Peres2005; DeMatteo & Loiselle, Reference DeMatteo and Loiselle2008; Lima et al., Reference Lima, DeMatteo, Jorge, Jorge, Dalponte, Lima and Klorfine2012, Reference Lima, Jorge, Jorge and Morato2015; Azevedo et al., Reference Azevedo, Lemos, Costa, Rocha and Freitas Junior2016; Tiepolo et al., Reference Tiepolo, Quadros and Pitman2016; Jorge et al., Reference Jorge, Beisiegel, Lima, Jorge, Leite-Pitman, de Paula, Chiarello, de Aguiar, Cerquera, de Melo, Rodrigues and da Silva2018; Oliveira et al., Reference Oliveira, Michalski, Botelho, Michalski, Calouro and Desbiez2018).

The bush dog is categorized as Near Threatened globally on the IUCN Red List (DeMatteo et al., Reference DeMatteo, Michalski and Leite-Pitman2011), as Vulnerable on the Brazilian National List and as Threatened in several Brazilian states and all biomes (Jorge et al., Reference Jorge, Beisiegel, Lima, Jorge, Leite-Pitman, de Paula, Chiarello, de Aguiar, Cerquera, de Melo, Rodrigues and da Silva2018). In the Atlantic Forest, the bush dog is categorized as Critically Endangered (Jorge et al., Reference Jorge, Beisiegel, Lima, Jorge, Leite-Pitman, de Paula, Chiarello, de Aguiar, Cerquera, de Melo, Rodrigues and da Silva2018), with a few records in the states of São Paulo (Beisiegel, Reference Beisiegel2009), Paraná (Fusco-Costa & Ingberman, Reference Fusco-Costa and Ingberman2013; Tiepolo et al., Reference Tiepolo, Quadros and Pitman2016), Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul (Fick et al., Reference Fick, Hendgen, Kunzler and da Silva2021) and Mato Grosso do Sul, in the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado ecotone (Teribele et al., Reference Teribele, Concone, Godoy, Bianchi, Santos and Mauro2012). In the state of Minas Gerais, the bush dog is categorized as Critically Endangered (COPAM, 2010; Jorge et al., Reference Jorge, Beisiegel, Lima, Jorge, Leite-Pitman, de Paula, Chiarello, de Aguiar, Cerquera, de Melo, Rodrigues and da Silva2018) and was considered probably extinct (Costa, Reference Costa, Machado, Fonseca, Machado, Aguiar and Lins1998) until the species was recorded in the north and west of the state (Ferreira et al., Reference Ferreira, Oliveira, Paula, Rodrigues and Carmo2015; Azevedo et al., Reference Azevedo, Lemos, Costa, Rocha and Freitas Junior2016; Silva et al., Reference Silva, Serafim, Rocha, Fonseca and Ferreira2022). Here we report the first record of the bush dog in southern Minas Gerais, the current northernmost known occurrence of this species in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

We conducted this study in 22 fragments in various landscapes in 16 municipalities in south-eastern Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro (Fig. 1). The temperature range in this region is 12.2–19.8 °C and the annual precipitation is 1,476–2,175 mm (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, 2012). The lowlands are predominantly humid, and the montane areas have dry or rainy winters. During January 2019–March 2020, we placed a single camera trap (Bushnell HD, Bushnell, Overland Park, USA) in each forest fragment for a mean of 4.3 months, at altitudes of 887–2,087 m. We followed the protocols for camera trapping proposed by Rovero & Spitale (Reference Rovero, Spitale, Rovero and Zimmermann2016) and Sharma et al. (Reference Sharma, Fiechter, George, Young, Alexander and Bijoor2020).

Fig. 1

Locations of all camera traps and the one at which the bush dog Speothos venaticus was recorded (Plate 1), and the nearest historical (Lund, Reference Lund1842) and recent (Azevedo et al., Reference Azevedo, Lemos, Costa, Rocha and Freitas Junior2016; Ferreira et al., Reference Ferreira, Oliveira, Paula, Rodrigues and Carmo2015; Silva et al., Reference Silva, Serafim, Rocha, Fonseca and Ferreira2022) records in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Plate 1

The two camera-trap photographs of the bush dog Speothos venaticus obtained on 20 May 2019 in the municipality of Santa Rita do Sapuçaí, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil (Fig. 1).

After 2,856 trap-days, we obtained two photographs of one bush dog (Plate 1) in the municipality of Santa Rita do Sapuçaí (Fig. 1) at 7.40 on 20 May 2019. The images are not clear but typical characteristics of the species can be distinguished, such as its short legs and tail, typical leg shape and elongated, cylindrical and thick body. We obtained five independent assessments from Brazilian carnivore specialists to confirm that these images were of a bush dog. The nearest known records in the state of Minas Gerais are 474–797 km north of this new record (Fig. 1). The survey effort was less than that required to detect the bush dog in other localities, where recording the species required 4,818 (Beisiegel, Reference Beisiegel2009), 4,112 (Fusco-Costa & Ingberman, Reference Fusco-Costa and Ingberman2013), 6,000, 7,000 and 27,000 (Ferreira et al., Reference Ferreira, Oliveira, Paula, Rodrigues and Carmo2015), 4,036 (Azevedo et al., Reference Azevedo, Lemos, Costa, Rocha and Freitas Junior2016) and 15,888 trap-days (Oliveira et al., Reference Oliveira, Michalski, Botelho, Michalski, Calouro and Desbiez2018).

We recorded the bush dog in a 164-ha fragment of seasonal forest at an altitude of 1,014 m. The fragment is 2 km from Serra de Santa Rita Mítzi Brandão Biological Reserve, a conservation unit and water recharge region with the Sapucaí River and seven main springs. The bush dog could be using this area as a corridor to access areas with greater availability of forest cover and water. A long-term monitoring project for the bush dog in this area would increase our knowledge of this species and, through its use as a flagship species, help to promote increased connectivity in the Atlantic Forest through corridors and stepping-stones that favour animal dispersal among fragmented populations.