# Marcelo Aranda: Memorias sobre un naturalista

> Marcelo Aranda taught generations of Mexican biologists to read tracks and signs. He made his first pocket track guide at 13, and his plaster casts now sit in Mexico’s National Mammal Collection. In this memorial book, his family, friends and students share stories of field days, jaguar tracks and patient teaching, right up to his last weeks.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 7 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2026-march-hoth-marcelo-aranda-memorias/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Ignacio J. March Mifsut (editor), Jürgen Hoth (editor)
- **Year published:** 2026
- **Journal or source:** Book. First domestic edition (1ª edición doméstica), México, October 2026. 251 pp. In Spanish; Kim Cabrera’s contribution is also in English. Design and image post-production by Jürgen Hoth; cover design and drawings by Ignacio March; drawings between sections by Marcelo Aranda.
- **Full citation:** March Mifsut, I. J., and Hoth, J. (Eds.). 2026. Marcelo Aranda: Memorias sobre un naturalista. 1st domestic edition. México. 251 pp.
- **Access status:** PDF hosted
- **PDF:** https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/2026_March-Mifsut_and_Hoth_marcelo-aranda-memorias-sobre-un-naturalista.pdf

## Tags

- **Species:** Mammals > Jaguar
- **Region:** North America > Mexico
- **Tracking:** Gaits; Hair; Individual identification; Scat; Track casts; Track measurements; Tracking; Tracks; Tracks and signs identification
- **Methods and technology:** Camera traps
- **Data type:** Field guide
- **Observer qualification:** Reported but not validated
- **Discipline:** Wildlife tracking
- **Year published:** 2026

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** The book covers Marcelo Aranda’s work on the wild mammals of Mexico, above all the jaguar (Panthera onca). Other species he studied or recorded include puma (Puma concolor), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), margay (Leopardus wiedii), bobcat (Lynx rufus), jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi), volcano rabbit or teporingo (Romerolagus diazi), peccaries (Tayassu spp.), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), coyote (Canis latrans) and Neotropical otter (Lontra longicaudis). Jaguar scats in the Chiapas mangroves held raccoon (Procyon lotor), tropical gar (Lepisosteus tropicus) and crab remains. Tracks cast on field trips came from jaguar, coyote, porcupine and others (11 species in two days at El Cuyo). On iNaturalist, dog tracks were often misidentified as mountain lion. The book has an index of species with common and scientific names.
- **Location and habitat:** Mexico: Chiapas (Selva Lacandona; Palo Blanco mangroves south of Pijijiapan), Campeche (Calakmul Biosphere Reserve), Yucatán (Ría Lagartos, El Cuyo, Ría Celestún, Mérida), the mountains around Mexico City (Ajusco, El Capulín, Desierto de los Leones, Parres in Tlalpan), Morelos, and La Michilía and Mapimí (Durango). Costa Rica, where he studied for his master’s degree. National Mammal Collection (CNMA), Institute of Biology, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
- **Topics:** life and legacy of Mexican field biologist and tracker Jaime Marcelo Aranda Sánchez (“el Ruco”); teaching tracks and signs identification in the field; plaster track casts and reference collections; scat; telling jaguar sexes and individuals apart from tracks; scientific illustration of mammals; track identification on iNaturalist; tracks and signs compared with camera traps; tracking in environmental education; jaguar ecology and conservation; illegal trade in wildlife skins
- **Statistics or models:** None
- **Data type:** Memoir: personal accounts, photographs and drawings, with a list of Marcelo Aranda’s main publications (pp. 159–163) and indexes of people, places, species and organizations.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

After Marcelo Aranda died on 4 April 2026, the editors invited his family, friends, colleagues and students to share their memories of him. The book gathers 47 contributions with his drawings and photographs, an introduction by the editors, a list of his main publications and indexes.

This entry is based on the summary, preface and introduction, and on ten contributions most focused on tracking (Barraza; Cabrera; Guevara and colleagues; Méndez Saint Martin; March Mifsut, three pieces; Sánchez-Cordero; Sosa Escalante; Sosa Fernández; Velázquez Montes), not on a full reading of all 47.

### 2. What they found

- Marcelo Aranda taught several generations of biologists to interpret the tracks and signs of wild mammals, through field courses (including his course on wild mammal signs at UNAM and 30 years of short courses), supervised theses, talks and work directly in the field.
- At 13 he had made his own pocket track guide. His books include “Rastros de los Mamíferos Silvestres de México” (1981), “Huellas y otros rastros de los mamíferos grandes y medianos de México” (2000) and the “Manual para el rastreo de mamíferos silvestres de México” (2012). Ten of his publications are mainly about tracks and signs; of 18 on wild cats, 8 are on the jaguar.
- In 1984 he donated plaster track casts, with a written catalogue, to the National Mammal Collection at UNAM. They stayed in storage for four decades, then were curated and formally opened in May 2025. He kept a still larger collection at home in Mérida, and helped build a reference collection of track casts for the Yucatán Peninsula, now at the Autonomous University of Yucatán.
- By Ignacio March’s account, he could tell female from male jaguars by their tracks, and on fine clay mud sometimes tell individuals apart from the position of a toe or a scar on a pad.
- In the field he showed students the features that identify each track, how the distance between tracks shows whether an animal walked or ran, and how to cast tracks in plaster. He stressed measuring tracks, pads and track patterns precisely, since many Yucatán species are smaller than elsewhere in the Neotropics.
- On iNaturalist he identified more than 89,000 observations. He patiently corrected misidentified tracks and said plainly when a track could not be identified from a photo.
- On a trip to El Cuyo in March 2025, the group cast tracks of 11 species in two days, including jaguar. He explained that on ideal ground a good tracker can identify many species in a short time, while camera traps must be left out for a set time.
- He held that tracks and signs and camera trapping complement each other rather than replace one another.

### 3. What they concluded

The contributors see his books, his track collections and the students he trained as a lasting legacy for the study and conservation of Mexico’s wild mammals. Ignacio March writes that tracks and signs identification remains a low-cost method that will not become obsolete, despite camera trapping and new technology.

The editors note that his photographs, drawings, skulls, casts and field diaries are still to be added to collections, and offer rich material for future research on natural history and on the history of science in Mexico.

### 4. How tracking was or was not used

Tracking is the subject of the book: tracks and signs identification, casting and measuring tracks, scat, hair and other signs, taught in the field and in reference collections.

### 5. Tracker or observer certification

Reported but not validated. The contributors describe Marcelo Aranda as a master tracker, but the book reports no certification or test of his skill. Kim Cabrera writes that she spoke about CyberTracker certification at a 2021 online tracking course where he also spoke, that he was interested, and that the first CyberTracker certification in Mexico was held recently.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- Plaster casting and reference collections of tracks.
- Scientific illustration in ink and in colour.
- Black and white wildlife photography.
- Identifying tracks and camera-trap photos online on iNaturalist.
- A 1993 course of his was recorded on VHS video.
- Laura Barraza used what she learned on his course to build teaching materials on mammal signs for primary-school children.

### 7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

- He raised concern about habitat destruction and the illegal trade in skins, especially of wild cats, and supported a 2020 study of jaguar trafficking in the Maya forest corridor.
- He held that conservation means involving local people, as at El Capulín.
- Contributors see tracking as a low-cost way to study remote populations.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- A catalogued collection of track casts, kept in a national collection, becomes a reference that new trackers and researchers can use for decades.
- His habit of saying when a track cannot be identified from a photo is a good example for anyone identifying tracks online.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: Marcelo Aranda: Memorias sobre un naturalista (Mifsut and Hoth, 2026). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2026-march-hoth-marcelo-aranda-memorias/