Abstract: Behavioural reactions to selected handling procedures were compared between conditioned, or imprint-trained, and untrained foals raised on the same farm. Nineteen randomly chosen healthy foals were imprint trained at birth and 24 h later (Group A). Twenty-one similar foals that were not imprint-trained served as age-matched controls (Group B). Training began within 10 min of birth and consisted of touch desensitization by gentle rubbing. Each tactile stimulus was repeated 30-50 times over 45-60 min, until the foal no longer resisted the procedure and appeared relaxed. The procedure was then repeated at 24 h of age. At that time a physical examination and blood analysis were performed to assess the foals' health status. Group B animals were not handled except for a brief physical examination and blood analysis at 24 h of age. Thereafter all foals were kept on pastures with their dams with no further handling until they were three months of age. Any foals handled for other reasons before that time were excluded from the study. At three months, each of the 28 foals that completed the study experienced the following handling procedures: acceptance of restraint, haltering, complete physical examination, acceptance of a plastic rebreathing bag, touching the whole body, intramuscular vaccination in the neck, intranasal vaccination, and deworming with oral paste. Response to each procedure was scored (1=not resistant, 2=low resistance, 3=strong resistance, 4=not possible without major physical restraint). Conditioned foals (Group A) were significantly less resistant to touching the front and hind legs and picking up the hind feet (P<0.05). The administration of vaccines and paste dewormer and the collection of blood were tolerated by the majority of the foals of both groups with no or low resistance. It appeared that neonatal imprint training resulted in a learned behaviour that resulted in decreased self-defence responses towards handling the limbs at three months of age.

Abstract: Guanacos (Lama guanicoe) are the largest native Artiodactyl in South America and the most widely distributed. In arid Patagonia, densities are low and negatively related to domestic sheep numbers in space and time consistent with interspecific competition theory. Although guanacos and domestic sheep have been described as intermediate feeders sharing food resources, no studies have been conducted to compare their diets in sympatric conditions and explore whether the potential exists for direct interspecific competition. We assessed the diet of both species across 9 different sites and 2 seasons by microhistological analysis of fecal samples. We found that (1) guanacos and sheep are generalist herbivores feeding on a wide range of plant species; (2) both are intermediate feeders able to include both monocotyledoneous and dicotyledoneous plants in their diet; (3) both are able to change their diets seasonally; and (4) food niche overlap is high, particularly in summer when food resources are more scarce than in spring. We conclude that the potential for competition between guanacos and sheep is high and could have played a major role in the demise of guanacos. Consequently, current management practices focused on maximizing sheep numbers are not compatible with the recovery of guanaco populations.

Abstract: Social behaviors of most mammals are affected by chemical signals, pheromones, exchanged between conspecifics. Previous experiments have shown that behavioral responses to the same pheromone differ depending on the sex and endocrine status of the respondent. Although the exact mechanism of this dimorphism is not known, one possible contributor may be due to sexually dimorphic receptors or due to differences in central processing within the brain. In order to investigate the differences in response between male and female mice to the same pheromonal stimulus two urinary compounds (2-heptanone and 2,5-dimethylpyrazine) were used to stimulate the production of Inositol (1,4,5)-trisphosphate (IP3) in microvillar membrane preparations of the vomeronasal organ as an indirect measurement of pheromonal stimulation. Incubation of such membranes from prepubertal mice with urine from the same sex or opposite sex, results in an increase in production of IP3. This stimulation is mimicked by GTP{gamma}S and blocked by GDP{beta}S. Furthermore we found that 2-heptanone present in both male and female urine was capable of stimulating increased production of IP3 in the female VNO but not the male VNO. Finally, 2,5-dimethylpyrazine present only in female urine was also only capable of stimulating increased production of IP3 in the female VNO.

Abstract: I begin with a rather unpromising dispute that Nozick once had with Ian Hacking in the pages of the London Review of Books, in which both vied with one another in their enthusiasm to repudiate the thesis that some human people or peoples are closer than others to animality. I shall attempt to show that one can build, on the basis of Nozick’s discussion of rationality, a defense of the view that the capacity for language places human rationality out of reach of a comparison with animals. The difference rests, paradoxi–cally, on the human capacity for irrationality. Irrationality depends on the capacity for language, which allows the detachment of explicit thoughts from their underlying dynamic implementation; these, in turn, condition the essential disputability of principles of rationality. That is what places every human potentially—if not actually—on the other side of an unbridge–able gulf that separates us from other animals.