Wild chinchillas were once thought to be extinct in the wild are listed as endangered. The current in-situ distribution of wild chinchillas exists in Bolivia and Chile. Short-tailed chinchillas (Chinchilla chinchilla) was rediscovered in Chile in 2001 and Bolivia in 2017 existing in the wild. The long-tailed species (Chinchilla lanigera) is endemic to Chile and wild colonies were found in the 1970’s. This study utilizes known and historical species distributions, elevation and climate to predict the probability of suitable habitat in Maxent, a maximum entropy algorithm for each species. For C. chinchilla, the area with the highest potential to encounter colonies was above a predicted values of 0.81 in the high Andes. For C. lanigera, areas with a probability of above 0.74 are the most likely areas to contain colonies. For conservation, these areas should be of highest priority for search expeditions.

Funded by the Tulsa Zoo