Dieta do quiriquiri, Falco sparverius (Aves: Falconiformes), na Estação Ecológica de Itirapina, SP

Diet of the American Kestrel, Falco sparverius (Aves: Falconiformes), in the Ecological Station of Itirapina, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. The American Kestrel is one of the smallest raptors of the world and occurs all over the Western Hemisphere in a great variety of habitat types. Although several studies on its diet have been published, there is no quantitative study on the food habit of this species in the Cerrado biome. The aim of this study was to analyze quantitative and qualitatively the diet of the American Kestrel in savannah and grassland-savannah at Itirapina Ecological Station, southeastern Brazil. Pellets found near American Kestrel's nests and roosting sites were collected from October 1999 to July 2002. The analysis of 108 pellets revealed 849 occurrences of food itens of which Acrididae (11.4%), unidentified Arthropoda (10.7%), Mantidae (9.8%), Blattidae (8.7%) and Araneomorphae (8.5%) were the most frequent. Vertebrates yielded 9.5%, with Squamata representing 7.5% of occurrences. In terms of number of prey ingested, we detected a total of 4,560 individuals, of which the most representative were unidentified Arthropoda (23.1%), Termitidae (19.0%), Acrididae (16.4%) and Formicidae (10.0%). Only 1.8% of the preys were vertebrates. We noted a significant seasonality in the diet (χ 2 = 241.1; df = 29; p < 0.001). Acrididae, Tettigoniidae and Blattidae were more consumed in the dry season, whereas Formicidae, Gryllotalpidae and Gryllacrididae were more preyed on wet season. The standardized Levins food niche breadth index revealed that the raptor tends to be relatively specialist both in dry (Bp = 0.270) and wet seasons (Bp = 0.234). The results showed that arthropods represented the bulk of the American Kestrel's diet, corroborating with other studies in North and Central America, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina. However, in tropical areas like Brazil, the Ameri- can Kestrel apparently displayed a higher consumption of insects and other arthropods than in temperate zones.

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