Abstract: Abstract Evidence for behavioural and brain lateralisation is now widespread among the animal kingdom; lateralisation of limb use (pawedness) occurs in several mammals including both feral and domestic horses. We investigated limb preferences in 14 Quarter Horse during different motor tasks (walking, stepping on and off a step, truck loading and unloading). Population lateralisation was observed in two tasks: horses preferentially used their left forelimb during truck loading and stepping off a step. The results also revealed that horses showed higher scores for anxious behaviours during truck loading suggesting that the use of the left forelimb in this task may reflect the main role of the right hemisphere in control of behaviour during stressful situation.

Abstract: tEye and limb preferences were scored in the closest undomesticated relative of Equuscaballus using the same methods as used previously to study laterality in feral horses.Observations were made of 33 Przewalski horses (Equus ferus przewalskii) (male N = 20,female N = 13) living under natural social conditions on a large reserve in France. Signifi-cant left-eye/side biases were found in agonistic interactions within harem bands (M ± SEbias to left 58% ± 0.01 for threats, P < 0.001; 68% ± 0.05 for attacks; P < 0.001) and in stallionfights (threats, 52% ± 0.01 left, P < 0.001; attacks, 63% ± 0.02 left, P < 0.001): as many as 80%of the horses were significantly lateralized in attack responses within harem bands. Lat-erality of vigilance was measured as lifting up the head from grazing and turning it to theleft or right side: a directional bias to the left was found (M ± SE 53% ± 0.02 left, P < 0.001).Side bias in reactivity was calculated as the percent of head lifts above the level of thewithers on the left or right side and this was also left side biased (M ± SE 73% ± 0.03 left,P < 0.001). These results indicate right-hemisphere specialization for control of aggressionand responses to novelty. The left bias in attack scores within harem bands was strongerin males than females (P = 0.024) and in immature than adult horses (P = 0.032). Immaturehorses were also more strongly lateralized than adults in vigilance scores (P = 0.022), whichmay suggest that experience reduces these side biases. Our results show that Przewalskihorses exhibit left eye preferences, as do feral horses, and do so even more strongly thanferal horses. Considering feral and Przewalski horses together, we deduce that ancestralhorses had similar lateral biases. Also similar to feral horses, the Przewalski horses showedno significant forelimb preference at the group level or in the majority of horses at theindividual level, confirming the hypothesis that previously reported limb preferences indomestic breeds are entrained or generated by breed-specific selection.

Abstract: Abstract Feral horses (Equus caballus) have a complex social structure, the stability of which is important to their overall health. Behavioral and demographic research has shown that decreases in group (or band) stability reduce female fitness, but the potential effects on the physiological stress response have not been demonstrated. To fully understand how band stability affects group-member fitness, we need to understand not only behavioral and demographic, but also physiological consequences of decreases to that stability. We studied group changes in feral mares (an activity that induces instability, including both male and female aggression) on Shackleford Banks, NC. We found that mares in the midst of changing groups exhibit increased fecal cortisol levels. In addition, mares making more group transfers show higher levels of cortisol two weeks post-behavior. These results offer insights into how social instability is integrated into an animal’s physiological phenotype. In addition, our results have important implications for feral horse management. On Shackleford Banks, mares contracepted with porcine zona pellucida (PZP) make approximately 10 times as many group changes as do untreated mares. Such animals may therefore be at higher risk of chronic stress. These results support the growing consensus that links between behavior and physiological stress must be taken into account when managing for healthy, functional populations.

Abstract: Monkeys readily learn to discriminate between rewarded and unrewarded items or actions by observing their conspecifics. However, they do not systematically learn from humans. Understanding what makes human-to-monkey transmission of knowledge work or fail could help identify mediators and moderators of social learning that operate regardless of language or culture, and transcend inter-species differences. Do monkeys fail to learn when human models show a behavior too dissimilar from the animals' own, or when they show a faultless performance devoid of error? To address this question, six rhesus macaques trained to find which object within a pair concealed a food reward were successively tested with three models: a familiar conspecific, a 'stimulus-enhancing' human actively drawing the animal's attention to one object of the pair without actually performing the task, and a 'monkey-like' human performing the task in the same way as the monkey model did. Reward was manipulated to ensure that all models showed equal proportions of errors and successes. The 'monkey-like' human model improved the animals' subsequent object discrimination learning as much as a conspecific did, whereas the 'stimulus-enhancing' human model tended on the contrary to retard learning. Modeling errors rather than successes optimized learning from the monkey and 'monkey-like' models, while exacerbating the adverse effect of the 'stimulus-enhancing' model. These findings identify error modeling as a moderator of social learning in monkeys that amplifies the models' influence, whether beneficial or detrimental. By contrast, model-observer similarity in behavior emerged as a mediator of social learning, that is, a prerequisite for a model to work in the first place. The latter finding suggests that, as preverbal infants, macaques need to perceive the model as 'like-me' and that, once this condition is fulfilled, any agent can become an effective model.

Abstract: There is not much research done on the influence of sympathetic training on the emotional reaction
of horses. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the emotional response and the stress level
in horses to two sympathetic training methods: (1) with the use of the “round pen technique” (RP),
and (2) in which the RP was not applied (SH). Twenty two half-bred Anglo-Arab horses (2.5
years ±3 months of age) were subject to an initial training. Eleven horses were randomly included
to the RP method and the other 11 horses for the SH method. Heart rate (HR) and saliva cortisol
concentration were measured as indicators of horse emotional arousal and stress level, respectively.
The HR values were analysed: at rest, during the habituation period, just after the first saddling
and tightening of the girth, during the first time a human leaned over the horse’s back, and during
the mounting of the horse. Saliva samples were taken before and 15 min after each training session
studied. After saddling, the HR occurred significantly higher when the RP technique was used. The
significant increase in saliva cortisol concentration was observed only after the first mounting of
the horse. Generally, the use of the RP technique did not involve more important physiological
reactions in the trained horses than did the SH method.