Use of cenotes and the cave environment by mammals on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico

We had four study sites comprising a total of 17 cenotes. At each cenote, cameras (ScoutGuard SG-680V; infra-red flash; programmed to take 1-min long videos when triggered, at high sensitivity and with no ‘quiet time’ between triggers) were positioned in order to best capture visitations by mammals; this typically involved placing one or more cameras at (1) the entrance(s) to the cenote, (2) along sections of dry cave leading to water and (3) at the point where the dry cave ends and the aquifer begins. Cameras were focused on locations most likely to permit animals to easily access water. The number of cameras placed within each cenote was influenced by the complexity of the site in terms of the width of the entrance, number of entrances and the breadth of the dry cave-water interface. Photos were sorted by species at each camera location and processed using the ‘CameraSweet’ camera trapping analysis software (https://smallcats.org/camerasweet/). We considered independent events to be those where 30 or more minutes had elapsed between successive photos of the same species at the same camera.