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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences

Avian Prey-Dropping Behavior. I. The Effects Of Prey Characteristics And Prey Loss, Paul V. Switzer, Daniel A. Cristol Jan 1999

Avian Prey-Dropping Behavior. I. The Effects Of Prey Characteristics And Prey Loss, Paul V. Switzer, Daniel A. Cristol

Paul V. Switzer

No abstract provided.


Alpha Status, Dominance, And Division Of Labor In Wolf Packs, L. David Mech Jan 1999

Alpha Status, Dominance, And Division Of Labor In Wolf Packs, L. David Mech

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

The prevailing view of a wolf (Canis lupus) pack is that of a group of individuals ever vying for dominance but held in check by the “alpha” pair, the alpha male and alpha female. Most research on the social dynamics of wolf packs, however, has been conducted on non-natural assortments of captive wolves. Here I describe the wolf-pack social order as it occurs in nature, discuss the alpha concept and social dominance and submission, and present data on the precise relationships among members in free-living packs, based on a literature review and 13 summers of observations of wolves …


Alpha Status, Dominance, And Division Of Labor In Wolf Packs, L. David Mech Jan 1999

Alpha Status, Dominance, And Division Of Labor In Wolf Packs, L. David Mech

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

The prevailing view of a wolf (Canis lupus) pack is that of a group of individuals ever vying for dominance but held in check by the “alpha” pair, the alpha male and alpha female. Most research on the social dynamics of wolf packs, however, has been conducted on non-natural assortments of captive wolves. Here I describe the wolf-pack social order as it occurs in nature, discuss the alpha concept and social dominance and submission, and present data on the precise relationships among members in free-living packs, based on a literature review and 13 summers of observations of wolves …


Regurgitative Food Transfer Among Wild Wolves, L. David Mech, Paul C. Wolf, Jane M. Packard Jan 1999

Regurgitative Food Transfer Among Wild Wolves, L. David Mech, Paul C. Wolf, Jane M. Packard

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Few studies of monogamous canids have addressed regurgitation in the context of extended parental care and alloparental care within family groups. We studied food transfer by regurgitation in a pack of wolves on Ellesmere Island, North West Territories, Canada, during 6 summers from 1988 through 1996. All adult wolves, including yearlings and a post-reproductive female, regurgitated food. Although individuals regurgitated up to five times per bout, the overall ratio of regurgitations per bout was 1.5. Pups were more likely to receive regurgitations (81%) than the breeding female (14%) or auxiliaries (6%). The breeding male regurgitated mostly to the breeding female …


Natural History Of The Marbled Salamander, Ambystoma Opacum (Gravenhorst), In West Virginia, With Special Notes On Reproduction And Larval Development, Jason J. Watkins Jan 1999

Natural History Of The Marbled Salamander, Ambystoma Opacum (Gravenhorst), In West Virginia, With Special Notes On Reproduction And Larval Development, Jason J. Watkins

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study observed a population of Ambystoma opacum in Kanawha State Forest, Kanawha County, five miles south of Charleston, West Virginia. Data were collected from September 1995 to November 1997. Reproductive biology and salamander development were examined. Predation of A. opacum and potential predators were also noted. Like other species in the genus Ambystoma, adult A. opacum are mostly fossorial and rarely seen above ground outside of the breeding season. During the breeding season, adults make their way to the breeding pools. Males ventured to the breeding pool first in early September and ranged in size from 49 to 75mm …


The Effect Of Proximity On Landmark Use In Clark’S Nutcrackers, Kristy L. Gould-Beierle, Alan Kamil Jan 1999

The Effect Of Proximity On Landmark Use In Clark’S Nutcrackers, Kristy L. Gould-Beierle, Alan Kamil

Avian Cognition Papers

Clark’s nutcrackers, Nucifraga columbiana, store thousands of pine seeds during the autumn and retrieve them throughout the winter. It has been shown that these birds are able to use visual cues to relocate hidden food in the laboratory. In this set of experiments, we trained three groups of Clark’s nutcrackers to find a hidden food goal that was placed in the same spatial location relative to the testing room. During training, the location of two local cues in relation to the goal differed between the three groups. Group 1 learned the task with the cues closest to the goal, group …


Patterns Of Movement And Orientation During Caching And Recovery By Clark’S Nutcrackers, Nucifraga Columbiana, Alan Kamil, Russell P. Balda, Sally Good Jan 1999

Patterns Of Movement And Orientation During Caching And Recovery By Clark’S Nutcrackers, Nucifraga Columbiana, Alan Kamil, Russell P. Balda, Sally Good

Avian Cognition Papers

Clark’s nutcrackers regularly store large numbers of pine seeds and remember the locations of the cached seeds. Although they are very accurate, they do make some errors during recovery. In an attempt to determine whether any behaviours during caching predicted the occurrence of errors during recovery, we videotaped Clark’s nutcrackers while they cached and recovered seeds under laboratory conditions. We used the videotapes to develop complete, quantitative descriptions of caching and recovery behaviour, with an emphasis on body orientation and directions of movement. During caching, the birds showed the greatest change in their orientation and direction following cache creation. During …


How Do They, Indeed? A Reply To Biegler Et Al., Alan Kamil, Juli E. Jones Jan 1999

How Do They, Indeed? A Reply To Biegler Et Al., Alan Kamil, Juli E. Jones

Avian Cognition Papers

We trained Clark’s nutcrackers, Nucifraga columbiana, to search halfway between two landmarks while varying the distance between the landmarks (Kamil & Jones 1997). We found that the birds learned the problem readily and generalized to novel interlandmark distances within the range of distances used during training. Unlike some other studies in which responses to proportional distance were obtained (e.g. O’Keefe & Burgess 1996; Tommasi et al. 1997), the nutcrackers showed very precise search and maintained this precision during the transfer test. The distributions of digging locations around the central position were concentrated within ±1–2 cm of the central location …


Avian Prey-Dropping Behavior. I. The Effects Of Prey Characteristics And Prey Loss, Paul V. Switzer, Daniel A. Cristol Jan 1999

Avian Prey-Dropping Behavior. I. The Effects Of Prey Characteristics And Prey Loss, Paul V. Switzer, Daniel A. Cristol

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.


Avian Prey-Dropping Behavior. I. The Effects Of Prey Characteristics And Prey Loss, Paul Switzer, Daniel Cristol Jan 1999

Avian Prey-Dropping Behavior. I. The Effects Of Prey Characteristics And Prey Loss, Paul Switzer, Daniel Cristol

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.


Twenty-Year Home-Range Dynamics Of A White-Tailed Deer Matriline, Michael E. Nelson, L. D. Mech Jan 1999

Twenty-Year Home-Range Dynamics Of A White-Tailed Deer Matriline, Michael E. Nelson, L. D. Mech

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

We examined the seasonal migration and home-range dynamics of a multigeneration white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) matriline comprising six females from four generations spanning a 20-year period in northeastern Minnesota. All, from the matriarch to her great-granddaughter, migrated to the same summer and winter ranges, the longest individual record being 14.5 years. Three maternal females concurrently occupied exclusive fawning sites within their ancestral matriarch’s summer range, while two nonmaternal females explored new areas and ranged near their mothers. One great-granddaughter expanded her summer range 1 km beyond the matriarch’s summer range while essentially vacating half of her ancestors’ range …