The high diversity of Peruvian carnivore species may pose problems when deciding to which taxa and topics new research efforts should be directed. In this publication, we evaluated the research effort made on each taxa -by assessing the number of publications per species-, point out the knowledge gaps that are important to the conservation of each species and present the first evaluation of research priorities for this group of animals to the country. We registered 145 publications about Peruvian carnivores made since 1943. The number of publications is significantly different between taxa, between subjects and between ecoregions where the research was conducted. According to the proposed priority scale, the species to be studied with greater priority is Nasua olivacea and the lowest priority is for Leopardus pardalis. The results of our study highlight the urgent need to conduct research on certain species of carnivores about which there are few published data, locally and globally, and which occupy a low number of ecoregions in the country. Both the scale of research priorities and the list of knowledge gaps presented here will be useful to guide logistical and financial efforts, for individual researchers as well as for private or governmental institutions.

The rock dove Columba livia is an exotic and feral bird that has been described as carrying various agents potentially pathogenic to man and other birds, including bacteria such as Salmonella spp. and E. coli, however, there are few studies regarding infectious disease agents carried by the species in our country. The objective of the study was to determine the enterobacterias present in this free-living bird resident in the City of Lima. During the months of June and July of 2014, 27 adult individuals of C. livia were captured in two zoos located in the districts of Chorrillos and San Juan de Miraflores. A cloacal swab was made to each bird and transported in the Cary Blair transport medium at 4 °C to a private laboratory. In the laboratory, samples were plated on McConkey agar and SS agar, and then proceeded to the identification using biochemical tests (TSI, LIA, Indol, SIM, Citrate, Methyl Red and Voges Proskauer). A total of 35 bacterial colonies were isolated 85.19 % (23/27) from the samples: 62.96 % (17/27) Escherichia coli, 11.11 % (3/27) Enterobacter aerogenes, 11.11 % (3/27) Klebsiella sp., 11.11 % (3/27) Proteus vulgaris, 7.41 % (2/27) Salmonella pullorum, 14.29 % (14/27) Shiguella sp., 11.11 % (3 / 27) Staphylococcus aureus and 3.70 % (1/27) Staphylococcus sp. Here, we report a high frequency of enterobacteria of interest in public health, evidencing the importance of considering rock dove as a reservoir for zoonotic bacteria.