Show me a maned wolf8/31/2023 ![]() ![]() Heart rate is a result of the balance of activity in the autonomic nervous system - the part of the nervous system that automatically controls body functions, like blood flow and digestion. How well do animals hide their “emotions?” Is behavior a good indicator of an animal’s internal response? And how does their heart respond to human presence or changes in the environment? Maned wolves are very secretive and shy animals, so they are good candidates to help us answer some important questions. What do you hope to learn by monitoring their heart rates? Maned wolves are also great ambassadors for the conservation of the Brazilian Cerrado, one of the most threatened savanna biomes in the world. The fruit, called the wolf apple, is even named after them. Maned wolf poop can be full of the seeds of a tomato-like wild fruit that they love to eat. They keep pest populations under control by hunting small rodents, and they help disperse the seeds of native plants. Maned wolves are a “keystone” species because they provide critical ecosystem services. Why is it important to protect maned wolves? Moraes shares the latest on the Rhythm of Life Project and what researchers have learned. Two years later, she helped launch the Rhythm of Life Project, a maned wolf heart rate monitoring study at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. She wondered what the same technology might reveal about maned wolves. In 2015, Moraes came across a study of wild black bears that used heart sensors to reveal what observation couldn’t - that the bears had a hidden stress response to drones flying overhead. These charismatic canids are a unique species (the only members of the genus Chrysocyon) and are found solely in South America’s savannas, where Brazilian researcher Rosana Nogueira de Moraes has studied them for nearly 15 years. Spindly legs and thick, red fur have earned them the nickname “foxes on stilts,” but maned wolves are neither fox nor wolf. Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute ![]()
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