You must have heard of bush dog, or we should say animal world’s cutest ninjas, but did you see one? These creatures know how not to be seen. But, a team of biologists claims it has captured some pictures of the world’s most elusive dogs.

They say the photos should be considered as a proof that the rarely seen and threatened species, also known as Speothos venaticus, is not as rare as it was previously considered. The bush dogs, weighing about 4.5 kilograms, usually found in Central and South America, but the creatures live far from human eye and spend about half of their day underground in burrows.

The biologist team captured pictures of the bush dogs in Panama’s remote areas. The team that got this rare opportunity to capture pictures of the cure creature was headed by Ricardo Moreno, a research associate for the Smithsonian Institution. While talking about the moment, Moreno said the pictures were captured using automated camera traps, means infrared sensors.

“The bush dog is one of the rarest species that we photograph. Our group of biologists from Yaguará Panama and collaborators are working on an article about big mammals using camera trapping data that spans Panama from the Costa Rican border to the Colombian border”, Moreno explained.

According to experts, these small dogs resemble little bears, but their hunting techniques are very much similar to other dogs. They also hunt in packs of up to 10, and communicate with each other with the help of high-pitched whines. These dogs feed on large forest rodents, as per the experts.

The biologist team captured the photos just only 11 times over the course of 32,000 camera days. It shows that the dog species very elusive, the team said.