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Crowell-Davis, S. L. (1994). Daytime rest behavior of the Welsh pony (Equus caballus) mare and foal. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 40(3-4), 197–210.
Abstract: Upright and recumbent rest of 15 Welsh pony foals and their mothers was studied over a 2 year period. During their first week of life, the foals spent 32% of the time in recumbent rest. Subsequently, the percentage of time spent in recumbent rest decreased, but was still greater than for the foal's mother by Week 21, when the foals spent 6.5% of their time in recumbent rest. Adults spent little time in recumbent rest. Foals rested upright only 3.5% of the time during their first week of life. Mares rested upright more than foals did to Week 13, at which time peak values for time spent in upright rest occurred for both mares (32.5%) and foals (23%). Subsequently, mares and foals spent equal, but decreasing, amounts of time resting upright. The total time spent resting by the foals decreased gradually, and was characterized by a transition from recumbent rest to upright rest. Foals were more likely to be resting, either recumbent or upright, if their mother was resting upright. During the late spring, summer, and early autumn, mares and foals were most likely to be resting upright between 09:00 and 17:00 h.
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Crowell-Davis, S. L. (1987). Self-grooming by mares and foals of the Welsh pony (Equus caballus). Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 17(3-4), 197–208.
Abstract: Self-grooming behaviour of 15 mare-foal pairs was studied weekly for the first 24 weeks of the foal's life. Mares self-groomed at mean rates of 1.2-2.2 times h-1 depending on the 4-week period. Foals self-groomed more often, with a peak rate of 12.3 times h-1 occurring during Week 5-8 and a subsequent decline to 6.0 times h-1 by Weeks 21-24. Self-grooming bouts of mares and foals also differed in the proportion devoted to each type of self-grooming. During a greater proportion of their total self-grooming bouts, foals scratched their head and neck with a hind limb or bit and scratched the trunk or hind limbs with the teeth. The mares spent a greater proportion of their self-grooming bouts rubbing their head or neck on an inanimate object, another pony, or their fore limb, or rolling on the ground. Particular types of individual self-grooming bouts were engaged in for different lengths of time. Foals had longer bouts of scratching the head and neck with a hind limb, scratching or biting the fore limb or hind limb with the teeth, and rubbing the head and neck on an inanimate object, while mares had longer bouts of rolling. Some of the differences in preference for particular types of self-grooming may be the result of differences in relative size of various body parts and, consequently, relative ease of a given type of self-grooming.
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Crowell-Davis, S. L., & Caudle, A. B. (1989). Coprophagy by foals: recognition of maternal feces. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 24(3), 267–272.
Abstract: Six foals were each observed for 4 h per week during the first 6 weeks of life in an experimental situation in which they had access to feces taken from their mother and from another mare which was not pregnant or lactating. The foals sniffed at the feces equally. Two foals engaged in a total of seven bouts of coprophagy. All bouts of coprophagy involved maternal feces (χ2; P<0.01).
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Crowell-Davis, S. L., Houpt, K. A., & Carini, C. M. (1986). Mutual grooming and nearest-neighbor relationships among foals of Equus caballus. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 15(2), 113–123.
Abstract: A 3-year study was carried out on the developmental behavior of foals from birth to 24 weeks of age and the behavior of mares living with foals. Mutual-grooming partners of foals were primarily other foals. The peak frequency of mutual grooming occurred during Weeks 9-12, when fillies mutual-groomed 1.6 times h-1 and colts mutual-groomed 0.9 times h-1. Fillies mutual-groomed more frequently than colts (P < 0.025). Fillies mutual-groomed randomly with colts and other fillies (P < 0.05), whereas colts mutual-groomed almost exclusively with fillies (P = 0.03). At all ages studied, if a foal's nearest neighbor was not its mother, it was more likely to be another foal than would be expected if the foal was associating randomly with non-mother ponies. Fillies were more likely than expected to have a filly rather than a colt as their nearest neighbor (P = 0.01). Thus, during their first few months of life, the foals studied exhibited patterns of behavior which were consistent with the development of the usual social milieu of unmanaged adults, in which several mares form a cohesive herd with one or more stallions associating with them.
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Crowell-Davis, S. L., Houpt, K. A., & Kane, L. (1987). Play development in Welsh pony (Equus caballus) foals. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 18(2), 119–131.
Abstract: The structure of the play of colts and fillies living on pasture was studied from birth (n = 15) for up to 24 weeks. Foal play was categorized as running and bucking alone, running and bucking in a group, interactive (contact or combat) play, play with an object, and play at an adult. The rate of play decreased with increasing age and ambient temperature. Fillies and colts played with equal frequency, but engaged in some different types of play at different rates. There was no difference between colts and fillies in the proportion of play bouts of running and bucking in a group or playing with an object. Fillies engaged in running and bucking alone more than colts. Colts engaged in interactive play and play at an adult more than fillies. While there was no significant difference between colts and fillies in the duration of either type of running and bucking play, the interactive play bouts of colts were significantly longer than those of fillies. Both mares and stallions were tolerant of foal play which involved use of their body as a play object, including mounting play. Both fillies and colts engaged in mounting play. Foals used various natural objects found in the pasture for repeated bouts of play with inanimate objects, a behaviour which may explain, from a developmental perspective, the occasional use of “tools” in adult equids. The sex differences in type of play were consistent with the social structure of unmanaged adults in which males must compete with each other in order to associate with females.
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Cuthill, I., & Kacelnik, A. (1990). Central place foraging: a reappraisal of the `loading effect'. Anim. Behav., 40(6), 1087–1101.
Abstract: Animals that provision a central place usually bring back larger loads when foraging far from home. This positive correlation between average load size and distance is typically explained as rate-maximizing behaviour in the face of a trade-off between travel costs and a decelerating rate of prey gain in food patches (the `loading effect'). By using feeders to provide wild parent starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, with constant rates of prey loading, a positive load-distance correlation was shown to exist in the absence of a loading effect (experiment I). However, in a laboratory simulation where no load was transported (experiment II). the average number of prey eaten in patch visits by self-feeding starlings was invariant with travel distance, so the explanation of the load-distance correlation in experiment I must lie in featues peculiar to central place foraging. Bottlenecks in ingestion by chicks and interruption by visual detection of nest disturbance (experiment III) were rejected as causes of the correlation. Risks of dropping prey in flight appeared low, but the risk of kleptoparasitism received weak support. The travel-load size correlation may be an adaptive response to load transport costs, as return travel times increased with the load size being carried (experiment IV).
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Cuthill, I. C., Kacelnik, A., Krebs, J. R., Haccou, P., & Iwasa, Y. (1990). Starlings exploiting patches: the effect of recent experience on foraging decisions. Anim. Behav., 40(4), 625–640.
Abstract: Laboratory and field experiments have shown that, as predicted by the marginal value model, starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, stay longer in a food patch when the average travel time between patches is long. A laboratory analogue of a patchy environment was used to investigate how starlings respond to rapidly fluctuating changes in travel time in order to find out the length of experience over which information is integrated. When there was a progressive increase in the amount of work required to obtain successive food items in a patch (experiment 1), birds consistently took more prey after long than after short travel times; travel experience before the most recent had no effect on the number of prey taken. Such behaviour does not maximize the rate of energy intake in this environment. The possibility that this is the result of a simple constraint on crop capacity is rejected as, when successive prey were equally easy to obtain up until a stepwise depletion of the patch (experiment 2), birds took equal numbers of prey per visit after long and short travel times: the rate-maximizing behaviour. A series of models are developed to suggest the possible constraints on optimal behaviour that affect starlings in the type of environment mimicked by experiment 1.
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Daly, M., & Wilson, M. I. (1999). Human evolutionary psychology and animal behaviour. Anim. Behav., 57(3), 509–519.
Abstract: Homo sapiensis increasingly being studied within the evolutionary (adaptationist, selectionist) framework favoured by animal behaviour researchers. There are various labels for such work, including evolutionary psychology, human behavioural ecology and human sociobiology. Collectively, we call these areas `human evolutionary psychology' (HEP) because their shared objective is an evolutionary understanding of human information processing and decision making. Sexual selection and sex differences have been especially prominent in recent HEP research, but many other topics have been addressed, including parent-offspring relations, reciprocity and exploitation, foraging strategies and spatial cognition. Many HEP researchers began their scientific careers in animal behaviour, and in many ways, HEP research is scarcely distinguishable from other animal behaviour research. Currently controversial issues in HEP, such as the explanation(s) for observed levels of heritable diversity, the kinds of data needed to test adaptationist hypotheses, and the characterization of a species-typical `environment of evolutionary adaptedness', are issues in animal behaviour as well. What gives HEP a distinct methodological flavour is that the research animal can talk, an ability that has both advantages and pitfalls for researchers. The proper use of self-reports and other verbal data in HEP might usefully become a subject of future research in its own right.
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Daniel, J. C., & Mikulka, P. J. (1998). Discrimination learning in the white rhinoceros. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 58(1–2), 197–202.
Abstract: This study examined the ability of two adult white rhinoceroses (Ceratotherium simum simum) to develop a visual discrimination between an open circle and a triangle. These stimuli were presented as black symbols on large white cards. The cards were presented 4.6 m apart and a food reward was given if the subject approached the open circle. Ten discrimination choices were given daily until each subject reached the criterion of 80% correct responding over a block of 50 trials. The female reached the criterion over trials 151–200, while the male required considerably longer (trials 501–550). The male's discrimination was dramatically affected by a shift in the food reward. This study demonstrates that these rhinos were able to develop a successful discrimination and this protocol could be used to further examine their visual acuity.
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Dawson, B. V., & Foss, B. M. (1965). Observational learning in budgerigars. Anim. Behav., 13(4), 470–474.
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