Animal Sciences Commons^™

Feeding Ecology Of Asiatic Wild Ass Equus Hemionus, Jochen Lengger, Frieda Tataruch, Christian Walzer

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

The Mongolian wild ass or khulan (Equus hemionus) is a potential competitor for forage to reintroduced Przewalski’s horses. To evaluate the major foraging plants of khulan we chose the alkane method that was first described by Mayes in 1984. Different plant species contain varying amounts and proportions of n-alkanes. This fact allows the determination of diet composition by comparing the plant alkane to the fecal alkane pattern. The major advantage is that the method is non-invasive and has been shown to be a reliable method in captive trials. Fecal and plant samples were collected simultaneously and preserved by …