Scientists Stunned: Amazon’s Mysterious ‘Ghost Dog’ Caught On Camera Nearly 600 Times

Deep in the Amazon rainforest lives a wild dog so seldom seen that researchers gave it a nickname: the ghost dog. Stocky, dark-furred, and built low to the ground, the short-eared dog had been so elusive for so long that almost nothing was confirmed about its numbers, habits, or exact range. A new study covering 25 years of fieldwork in Bolivia has finally pulled back the curtain on this mysterious animal, and the results are surprising. In the areas surveyed, the ghost dog appears to be considerably less rare than previously assumed.

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society set up remote cameras across the Bolivian Amazon and neighboring parts of Peru, patiently waiting for a creature that most scientists had only glimpsed in passing. What they ended up with was the largest confirmed collection of short-eared dog records ever assembled anywhere in the world, nearly 600 documented sightings captured on camera over more than two decades. Across two large conservation regions, the study gathered 500 distribution records for the species.

Received wisdom long held that this animal was vanishingly rare. While still detected less often than medium-sized predators like the ocelot, a spotted wild cat roughly comparable in size to the short-eared dog, camera records showed the ghost dog was detected more frequently than the jaguar at the surveyed stations. Those are camera counts, not a full population survey, but they still shift how conservationists think about protecting the species.

The Short-Eared Dog: The Amazon Animal Scientists Rarely See

Genuinely strange-looking even by Amazon standards, the short-eared dog has a low-slung body, very short legs, a large head with tiny rounded ears, and a thick, bushy tail that drags along the ground. Its coat is dark, ranging from blackish-gray to reddish-brown, and its paws are partially webbed, a feature found in no other wild dog in the Amazon. Despite living in one of the world’s most studied ecosystems, it had been so elusive that Bolivia had only six confirmed sighting locations on record before researchers began more systematic efforts. Researchers distinguished the species from the similar-looking crab-eating fox using physical traits captured on camera: ear shape, body proportions, and coat color.

25 Years of Camera Traps Reveal the Short-Eared Dog’s Secret Life

Published in the journal Neotropical Biology and Conservation, the study drew on 34 camera surveys conducted between 2001 and 2024 at 23 different locations in Bolivia and southeastern Peru. The cameras were originally set up to track jaguars, giving the team years of existing footage to search through. Stations covered lowland Amazon forests to the edge of the Andes foothills, primarily below 650 meters elevation, which the authors consider prime habitat in that region.

Short-eared dogs showed up at camera stations inside forests far more than anywhere else. Nearly 98% of all sightings came from forest stations rather than river beaches or open areas, almost the opposite of jaguars, which were more likely to be photographed near rivers. Of the 594 documented sightings, 72% occurred during daylight hours, with activity peaking between 6 a.m. and noon. Only 22% of sightings happened at night, confirming the species as overwhelmingly active during the day.

How much intact forest surrounded a camera station turned out to be one of the strongest predictors of whether a short-eared dog would show up. Areas with fragmented forest, the kind of chopped-up landscape that results from logging or agriculture, were linked to lower presence. Animals also tended to avoid areas close to major rivers, human settlements, and tourism lodges.

How Rare Is the Short-Eared Dog, Really?

To estimate population density, the researchers compared the short-eared dog’s camera detection rates to those of the ocelot, a similarly sized predator whose spotted coat allows individual identification and more precise population counts. Short-eared dogs turned up at roughly a quarter of the ocelot’s rate at shared sites. Using ocelot density estimates from the same survey areas, the team extrapolated an average density of roughly 15 short-eared dogs per 100 square kilometers, an approximation from indirect comparison, not a field census.

That figure is lower than a previous estimate from southern Peru, which used tracking collars on five animals and suggested about 50 individuals per 100 square kilometers. The gap may reflect real geographic differences or methodological ones. Camera detection rates also varied over time at the same sites without a clear explanation, though previous research has raised the possibility that diseases spread by domestic dogs could be a factor.

Why Protected Lands and Indigenous Territories Matter for This Species

More than half of all camera sightings came from areas where national protected zones and Indigenous territories overlapped, more than from any other land type. Animals were almost never recorded in areas with no protected status at all. Significant gaps remain in the data: higher-elevation forests and broad stretches of Bolivia’s lowlands are still largely uncharted for this species.

After 25 years of camera traps, thousands of monitoring nights, and nearly 600 documented encounters, the ghost dog is finally coming into focus. What the data show is that its future is tightly tied to the fate of the Amazon’s intact forests.

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