New records and description of the microstructural patterns of guard hair in Conepatus chinga ( Molina , 1782 ) ( Carnivora , Skunk ) for the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina , southern Brazil

This article aims to show new records of Conepatus chinga for the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil, contributing to increase knowledge on its distribution, besides describing the microstructural patterns of its guard hair. Three run-over specimens were found in highway BR-280, two of them in the town of Palmas, in Paraná, and one in the town of Abelardo Luz, in Santa Catarina. For describing the cuticular and medullary pattern of guard hairs, sixty slides were made. Conepatus chinga has a cross-sectional and undulated cuticular pattern and an anisocytic medullary pattern. The description of microstructural patterns of C. chinga makes it easier to conduct studies related to its ecology, increasing the chances to identify hairs found in fecal samples from carnivores in mastofauna studies.


Introduction
The genus Conepatus consists of four species distributed in American ield biomes (WOZENCRAFT, 2005).Out of these, two species occur in the Brazilian territory, Conepatus semistriatus (Boddaert, 1785), observed from the northeastern country to the state of São Paulo, especially in open vegetation of Caatinga, Cerrado, and Pantanal (VIEIRA, 1955;EMMONS;FEER, 1997;EISENBERG;REDFORD, 1999;SILVA et al., 2004;CÁCERES et al., 2008;REIS et al., 2011), and Conepatus chinga, which occurs in ield areas and forest edges in the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul and it requires more conirmation for the state of Paraná (REIS et al., 2011).
Conepatus chinga (Molina, 1782) is a small carnivore that has a long, thin, coat, with a general black to dark brown color and two white stripes that may extend from the top of its head down to the sides of the back up to the base of the tail (REIS et al., 2011).
These white stripes are highly variable in length and width and they may be even completely absent (TRIGO et al., 2013).
According to Cherem et al. (2007), in the state of Santa Catarina the occurrence of C. chinga is restricted to the central portion, and most of the records was due to running over (CHEREM et al., 2004;2007;CHEREM, 2005).For Paraná, Cáceres (2004) registered C. chinga in the submontane dense ombrophilous forest in the Area of Special Tourist Interest of Marumbi, in Serra do Mar.
The species is regarded as being in decline, due to hunting for fur trade, degradation of ields (EMMONS;HELGEN, 2008), and impact of running over on C. chinga populations (ROSA; MAUHS, 2004;CHEREM et al., 2007).Kasper et al. (2009) reported the loss of 40% of marked animals in a study, mostly due to running over.
Roads are among the environmental changes that caused the most extensive impacts on natural landscapes in the 20 th century (BERGALLO; VERA Y CONDE, 2001).Mortality due to running over may be highly damaging to natural populations, especially for species that occur at low densities, such as endangered species and those with a relatively large habitat and low reproductive rates, such as the carnivore species (SOUSA; MIRANDA, 2010), and sometimes it may be responsible for the record of little-known species.
Identiication of the microstructure of hairs has been a widely used tool for identifying mammals, in addition, some studies use it to investigate the occurrence of particular species, in order to know their geographical distribution (ABREU et al., 2011).Some papers use the microstructural patterns of hairs (QUADROS; MONTEIRO-FILHO, 1998a;1998b;2006a;2006b;VASQUEZ et al., 2000) as an auxiliary methodology to mastofauna surveys, but the lack of description of hairs in some Brazilian mammals makes it dificult to use this methodology.
Among the American species of the genus Conepatus, only C. semistriatus had its microstructural pattern described, and its cuticular pattern is pavimentous, undulated, cross-sectional, with continuous scale edges; and the marrow is present, continuous, multiserial, anastomosed, and amorphous (JUÁREZ et al., 2007).
For C. chinga only the morphological features of the proximal region of hairs were described and the scales have a mosaic-like pattern on the proximal region (VASQUEZ et al., 2000).

Data collection
The collection of run-over specimens was performed on the margins of highway BR-280 in the town of Palmas, Paraná, and highway SC-467, in Abelardo Luz, Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil.The region of ields in Palmas is part of Campos Sulinos, which are regarded as part of the Atlantic Forest biome, and this is one of the most threatened Brazilian biomes and has one of the most diverse faunas in the world (MYERS et al., 2000;MIRANDA et al., 2008).Currently the ields in Palmas are characterized by areas altered by grazing, agriculture, and silviculture.

Occurrence of Conepatus chinga
To check locations with occurrence of C. chinga, a literature review of articles and books was carried out to obtain the species records for the states of Santa Catarina and Paraná, in southern Brazil.

Microstructural pattern of guard hair
We collected manually, for analyzing the microstructural pattern of hairs, small tufts of guard hairs from the back at the intersection region between the median line and the scapular line, from the 3 run-over individuals found.The hairs were pulled away so that the bulb and apex were not damaged.By means of them, 60 slides of the cuticular and medullary pattern were made, using 20 guard hairs of each specimen, according to the identiication techniques described by Quadros and Monteiro-Filho (2006a;2006b).The preparation of slides was performed in the Laboratory of Zoology of the Paraná State University (UNESPAR), in the campus União da Vitória.
d distribution and new records of Bibliographical data register the species for 17 towns in the state of Santa Catarina (Table 1) and there is only 1 record for the state of Paraná, in the region of Serra do Mar (Figure 2).

Microstructural pattern of guard hair
Guard hair in C. chinga have a cross-sectional and undulated cuticular pattern, where scales do not have deined corners, their contour is undulated and it constitutes a set of smooth transitions between protrusions and recesses of varying depth (Figure 3A).
Medulla is present and continuous over the whole length of the guard hair, it is possible to discern medullary cells containing air and pigments, embedded in the center of cortical matrix (Figure 3B).The medullary pattern found is anisocytic, where cells have a similar shape, but different sizes that may reach the diameter of medulla.
No differences were found between the cuticular and medullary patterns of the 60 C. chinga guard hairs.
New records and description of guard hair in Conepatus chinga

Discussion
Conepatus chinga has nocturnal/crepuscular terrestrial habits (CHEIDA et al., 2006), inhabiting open areas, from the Paraguayan Chaco to the steppes in Cordillera foothills (REDFORD; EISENBERG, 1992) and, above all, the grasslands in Pampa (KASPER et al., 2009).There are records of the species using forest environments in Serra do Mar in the state of Paraná (CÁCERES, 2004).Nevertheless, this record may be associated with proximity to open areas, since vegetation in the area is inluenced by the mixed ombrophilous forest.
Skunks, in general, and Conepatus, in particular, are associated with open environments; C. humboldtii occurs in association with desert environments; C. semistriatus has its distribution associated with Caatinga and Cerrado, with only occasional records in areas of the Atlantic Forest; and C. chinga has most of its distribution associated with Pampa and Andean steppes.Thus, it is possible that forest areas such as the Atlantic Forest represent barriers to species dispersal.Records such as those made by Cáceres (2004) (CHEREM et al., 2004;2007;CHEREM, 2005;KASPER et al., 2012), showing the huge impact of roads on wildlife.
Conepatus chinga had a cross-sectional and undulated cuticular pattern and an anisocytic medullary pattern, described for some carnivores by Quadros and Monteiro-Filho (2006a;2006b) and typical of some Neotropical mammal species (QUADROS; MONTEIRO-FILHO, 2006b).Vasquez et al. (2000) described the morphological features of the proximal region in C. chinga, where scales have a mosaic-like pattern in the proximal region, differing from that obtained in this study, in which the shield region was described according to the methods adopted by Quadros and Monteiro-Filho (2006a).The characteristics of the patterns described for C. semistriatus by Juárez et al. (2007), are similar to those of C. chinga, differing only in a few features in the arrangement of cells in the medulla, something which may be used to distinguish the two species.The description of microstructural patterns of C. chinga makes it easier to conduct studies related to its ecology, increasing the chances to identify hairs found in fecal samples from carnivores in mastofauna studies.
With these new records, the occurrence of C. chinga becomes conirmed for the natural ield areas in the town of Palmas, Paraná, and Abelardo Luz, Santa Catarina, however, there is a for need further studies, to conirm the species in submontane dense ombrophilous forest and (Figure 3B).The medullary pattern found is No differences were found between the cutic habits (CHEIDA et al., 2006 (REDFORD;EISENBERG, 1992Pampa (KASPER et al., 2009 Paraná ( Nevertheless Cáceres (2004) Rio Grande do Sul, where it was not known by the population (Carlos Benhur Kasper in deforested areas of this plant formation, and actions aimed at the conservation of this carnivore species. Thus, this study aimed to: (1) report 2 new C. chinga records for the state of Paraná and 1 for Santa Catarina; (2) introduce a review map of occurrence locations for the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, southern Brazil; and (3) describe the microstructural patterns of guard hairs in this species.
New records and description of guard hair in Conepatus chingaHighway BR-280 is a cross-country road, which starts in São Francisco do Sul, enters the state of Paraná and ends at the border between the states of Santa Catarina and Paraná, in the town of Dionísio Cerqueira, Santa Catarina, which borders Argentina.This highway is an important corridor for the low of northern plateau production in the state of Paraná to the Port of São Francisco do Sul.

FIGURE 2 :
FIGURE 2: Records of Conepatus chinga for the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, southern Brazil.

TABLE 1 :
Documented distribution and new records of Conepatus chinga for the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, Cherem et al. (2007) Água Doce, Erval Velho, Bom Retiro, Curitibanos, São Cristóvão do Sul, Ponte Alta, Correia Pinto, Lages, Bocaina do Sul, Painel, São Joaquim Kasper et al. (2012) So far, taking this paper into account, there are 3 records of C. chinga for the state of Paraná.In the state of Santa Catarina, records are distributed into 17 municipalities, most of them occurred by means of run-over specimens associated with open areas in the central portion of the state