| Records |
| Author |
Vallortigara, G.; Rogers, L.J. |
| Title |
Survival with an asymmetrical brain: advantages and disadvantages of cerebral lateralization |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2005 |
Publication |
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Behav Brain Sci |
| Volume |
28 |
Issue |
4 |
Pages |
575-89; discussion 589-633 |
Keywords  |
Animals; Attention/*physiology; Behavior/*physiology; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Dominance, Cerebral/*physiology; *Evolution; Humans; Models, Biological; Visual Perception/physiology |
| Abstract |
Recent evidence in natural and semi-natural settings has revealed a variety of left-right perceptual asymmetries among vertebrates. These include preferential use of the left or right visual hemifield during activities such as searching for food, agonistic responses, or escape from predators in animals as different as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. There are obvious disadvantages in showing such directional asymmetries because relevant stimuli may be located to the animal's left or right at random; there is no a priori association between the meaning of a stimulus (e.g., its being a predator or a food item) and its being located to the animal's left or right. Moreover, other organisms (e.g., predators) could exploit the predictability of behavior that arises from population-level lateral biases. It might be argued that lateralization of function enhances cognitive capacity and efficiency of the brain, thus counteracting the ecological disadvantages of lateral biases in behavior. However, such an increase in brain efficiency could be obtained by each individual being lateralized without any need to align the direction of the asymmetry in the majority of the individuals of the population. Here we argue that the alignment of the direction of behavioral asymmetries at the population level arises as an “evolutionarily stable strategy” under “social” pressures occurring when individually asymmetrical organisms must coordinate their behavior with the behavior of other asymmetrical organisms of the same or different species. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology and B.R.A.I.N. Centre for Neuroscience, University of Trieste, 34123 Trieste, Italy. vallorti@univ.trieste.it |
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English |
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Edition |
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| ISSN |
0140-525X |
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| Notes |
PMID:16209828 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
4622 |
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| Author |
Chiesa, A.D.; Pecchia, T.; Tommasi, L.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Multiple landmarks, the encoding of environmental geometry and the spatial logics of a dual brain |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
9 |
Issue |
4 |
Pages |
281-293 |
| Keywords |
Animals; Association Learning/*physiology; Chickens; *Cues; Dominance, Cerebral/*physiology; *Environment; Exploratory Behavior/*physiology; Logic; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/physiology |
| Abstract |
A series of place learning experiments was carried out in young chicks (Gallus gallus) in order to investigate how the geometry of a landmark array and that of a walled enclosure compete when disoriented animals could rely on both of them to re-orient towards the centre of the enclosure. A square-shaped array (four wooden sticks) was placed in the middle of a square-shaped enclosure, the two structures being concentric. Chicks were trained to ground-scratch to search for food hidden in the centre of the enclosure (and the array). To check for effects of array degradation, one, two, three or all landmarks were removed during test trials. Chicks concentrated their searching activity in the central area of the enclosure, but their accuracy was inversely contingent on the number of landmarks removed; moreover, the landmarks still present within the enclosure appeared to influence the shape of the searching patterns. The reduction in the number of landmarks affected the searching strategy of chicks, suggesting that they had focussed mainly on local cues when landmarks were present within the enclosure. When all the landmarks were removed, chicks searched over a larger area, suggesting an absolute encoding of distances from the local cues and less reliance on the relationships provided by the geometry of the enclosure. Under conditions of monocular vision, chicks tended to rely on different strategies to localize the centre on the basis of the eye (and thus the hemisphere) in use, the left hemisphere attending to details of the environment and the right hemisphere attending to the global shape. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology and B.R.A.I.N. Centre for Neuroscience, University of Trieste, via S. Anastasio 12, 34100, Trieste, Italy |
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English |
Summary Language |
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Edition |
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| ISSN |
1435-9448 |
ISBN |
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Conference |
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| Notes |
PMID:16941155 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2443 |
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| Author |
Zucca, P.; Milos, N.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Piagetian object permanence and its development in Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2007 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
10 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
243-258 |
| Keywords |
Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Birds/*physiology; *Cognition; *Cues |
| Abstract |
Object permanence in Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) was investigated using a complete version of the Uzgiris and Hunt scale 1. Nine hand-raised jays were studied, divided into two groups according to their different developmental stages (experiment 1, older jays: 2-3 months old, n = 4; experiment 2, younger jays: 15 days old, n = 5). In the first experiment, we investigated whether older jays could achieve piagetian stage 6 of object permanence. Tasks were administered in a fixed sequence (1-15) according to the protocols used in other avian species. The aim of the second experiment was to check whether testing very young jays before their development of “neophobia” could influence the achievement times of piagetian stages. Furthermore, in this experiment tasks were administered randomly to investigate whether the jays' achievement of stage 6 follows a fixed sequence related to the development of specific cognitive abilities. All jays tested in experiments 1 and 2 fully achieved piagetian stage 6 and no “A not B” errors were observed. Performance on visible displacement tasks was better than performance on invisible ones. The results of experiment 2 show that “neophobia” affected the response of jays in terms of achievement times; the older jays in experiment 1 took longer to pass all the tasks when compared with the younger, less neophobic, jays in experiment 2. With regard to the achieving order, jays followed a fixed sequence of acquisition in experiment 2, even if tasks were administered randomly, with the exception of one subject. The results of these experiments support the idea that piagetian stages of cognitive development exist in avian species and that they progress through relatively fixed sequences. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology, Laboratory of Animal Cognition and Comparative Neuroscience, Via S. Anastasio 12, 34100, Trieste, Italy. zucca@units.it |
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English |
Summary Language |
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Original Title |
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Series Title |
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Abbreviated Series Title |
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Series Issue |
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Edition |
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1435-9448 |
ISBN |
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Medium |
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Conference |
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| Notes |
PMID:17242935 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2423 |
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| Author |
Zucca, P.; Antonelli, F.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Detour behaviour in three species of birds: quails (Coturnix sp.), herring gulls (Larus cachinnans) and canaries (Serinus canaria) |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2005 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
8 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
122-128 |
| Keywords |
Animals; *Avoidance Learning; *Birds; Canaries; Charadriiformes; Coturnix; *Discrimination Learning; Orientation; *Space Perception; *Spatial Behavior; Species Specificity |
| Abstract |
Detour behaviour is the ability of an animal to reach a goal stimulus by moving round any interposed obstacle. It has been widely studied and has been proposed as a test of insight learning in several species of mammals, but few data are available in birds. A comparative study in three species of birds, belonging to different eco-ethological niches, allows a better understanding of the cognitive mechanism of such detour behaviour. Young quails (Coturnix sp.), herring gulls (Larus cachinnans) and canaries (Serinus canaria), 1 month old, 10-25 days old and 4-6 months old, respectively, were tested in a detour situation requiring them to abandon a clear view of a biologically interesting object (their own reflection in a mirror) in order to approach that object. Birds were placed in a closed corridor, at one end of which was a barrier through which the object was visible. Four different types of barrier were used: vertical bar, horizontal bar, grid and transparent. Two symmetrical apertures placed midline in the corridor allowed the birds to adopt routes passing around the barrier. After entering the apertures, birds could turn either right or left to re-establish social contact with the object in the absence of any local sensory cues emanating from it. Quails appeared able to solve the task, though their performance depended on the type of barrier used, which appeared to modulate their relative interest in approaching the object or in exploring the surroundings. Young herring gulls also showed excellent abilities to locate spatially the out-of-view object, except when the transparent barrier was used. Canaries, on the other hand, appeared completely unable to solve the detour task, whatever barrier was in use. It is suggested that these species differences can be accounted for in terms of adaptation to a terrestrial or aerial environment. |
| Address |
Laboratory of Animal Cognition and Comparative Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Trieste, Via S. Anastasio 12, 34100, Trieste, Italy. zucca@units.it |
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English |
Summary Language |
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1435-9448 |
ISBN |
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Conference |
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| Notes |
PMID:15449104 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2506 |
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| Author |
Sovrano, V.A.; Bisazza, A.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
How fish do geometry in large and in small spaces |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2007 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
10 |
Issue |
1 |
Pages |
47-54 |
| Keywords |
Animals; *Association Learning; Color Perception; Cues; *Discrimination Learning; *Distance Perception; *Fishes; Male; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Social Environment; *Space Perception; Visual Perception |
| Abstract |
It has been shown that children and non-human animals seem to integrate geometric and featural information to different extents in order to reorient themselves in environments of different spatial scales. We trained fish (redtail splitfins, Xenotoca eiseni) to reorient to find a corner in a rectangular tank with a distinctive featural cue (a blue wall). Then we tested fish after displacement of the feature on another adjacent wall. In the large enclosure, fish chose the two corners with the feature, and also tended to choose among them the one that maintained the correct arrangement of the featural cue with respect to geometric sense (i.e. left-right position). In contrast, in the small enclosure, fish chose both the two corners with the features and the corner, without any feature, that maintained the correct metric arrangement of the walls with respect to geometric sense. Possible reasons for species differences in the use of geometric and non-geometric information are discussed. |
| Address |
Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Via Venezia, 8, 35131, Padova, Italy. valeriaanna.sovrano@unipd.it |
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English |
Summary Language |
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Original Title |
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Series Title |
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Abbreviated Series Title |
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Series Issue |
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Edition |
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| ISSN |
1435-9448 |
ISBN |
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Medium |
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| Notes |
PMID:16794851 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2462 |
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| Author |
Siniscalchi, M.; Sasso, R.; Pepe, A.M.; Dimatteo, S.; Vallortigara, G.; Quaranta, A. |
| Title |
Sniffing with the right nostril: lateralization of response to odour stimuli by dogs |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
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Publication |
Animal Behaviour |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
| Volume |
In Press, Corrected Proof |
Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
animal welfare; Canis familiaris; dog; emotion; laterality olfaction; physiology |
| Abstract |
Lateralization in dogs, Canis familiaris, has been reported for paw usage and response to visual and acoustic stimuli. Surprisingly, however, no investigation of possible lateralization for the most relevant sensory domain of dogs, namely olfaction, has been carried out. Here we investigated left and right nostril use in dogs freely sniffing different emotive stimuli in unrestrained conditions. When sniffing novel nonaversive stimuli (food, lemon, vaginal secretion and cotton swab odours), dogs showed initial preferential use of the right nostril and then a shift towards use of the left nostril with repeated stimulus presentation. When sniffing arousal stimuli such as adrenaline and veterinary sweat odorants, dogs showed a consistent right nostril bias all over the series of stimulus presentations. Results suggest initial involvement of the right hemisphere in processing of novel stimuli followed by the left hemisphere taking charge of control of routine behaviour. Sustained right nostril response to arousal stimuli appears to be consistent with the idea that the sympathetic hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is mainly under the control of the right hemisphere. The implications of these findings for animal welfare are discussed. |
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0003-3472 |
ISBN |
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no |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
5394 |
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| Author |
Quaresmini, C.; Forrester, G.S.; Spiezio, C.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Social environment elicits lateralized behaviors in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2014 |
Publication |
Journal of Comparative Psychology |
Abbreviated Journal |
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| Volume |
128 |
Issue |
3 |
Pages |
276-284 |
| Keywords |
*Animal Ethology; *Animal Social Behavior; *Chimpanzees; *Gorillas; *Social Influences; Cerebral Dominance; Lateral Dominance; Social Environments |
| Abstract |
The influence of the social environment on lateralized behaviors has now been investigated across a wide variety of animal species. New evidence suggests that the social environment can modulate behavior. Currently, there is a paucity of data relating to how primates navigate their environmental space, and investigations that consider the naturalistic context of the individual are few and fragmented. Moreover, there are competing theories about whether only the right or rather both cerebral hemispheres are involved in the processing of social stimuli, especially in emotion processing. Here we provide the first report of lateralized social behaviors elicited by great apes. We employed a continuous focal animal sampling method to record the spontaneous interactions of a captive zoo-living colony of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and a biological family group of peer-reared western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). We specifically focused on which side of the body (i.e., front, rear, left, right) the focal individual preferred to keep conspecifics. Utilizing a newly developed quantitative corpus-coding scheme, analysis revealed both chimpanzees and gorillas demonstrated a significant group-level preference for focal individuals to keep conspecifics positioned to the front of them compared with behind them. More interestingly, both groups also manifested a population-level bias to keep conspecifics on their left side compared with their right side. Our findings suggest a social processing dominance of the right hemisphere for context-specific social environments. Results are discussed in light of the evolutionary adaptive value of social stimulus as a triggering factor for the manifestation of group-level lateralized behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) |
| Address |
Quaresmini, Caterina: Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Corso Bettini 31, Rovereto, Italy, 38068, caterina.quaresmini@gmail.com |
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American Psychological Association |
Place of Publication |
Us |
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1939-2087(Electronic),0735-7036(Print) |
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no |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ 2014-13828-001 |
Serial |
6396 |
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| Author |
Ghirlanda, S.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
The evolution of brain lateralization: a game-theoretical analysis of population structure |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2004 |
Publication |
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
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| Volume |
271 |
Issue |
1541 |
Pages |
853-857 |
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| Abstract |
In recent years, it has become apparent that behavioural and brain lateralization at the population level is the rule rather than the exception among vertebrates. The study of these phenomena has so far been the province of neurology and neuropsychology. Here, we show how such research can be integrated with evolutionary biology to understand lateralization more fully. In particular, we address the fact that, within a species, left– and right–type individuals often occur in proportions different from one–half (e.g. hand use in humans). The traditional explanations offered for lateralization of brain function (that it may avoid unnecessary duplication of neural circuitry and reduce interference between functions) cannot account for this fact, because increased individual efficiency is unrelated to the alignment of lateralization at the population level. A further puzzle is that such an alignment may even be disadvantageous, as it makes individual behaviour more predictable to other organisms. Here, we show that alignment of the direction of behavioural asymmetries in a population can arise as an evolutionarily stable strategy when individual asymmetrical organisms must coordinate their behaviour with that of other asymmetrical organisms. Brain and behavioural lateralization, as we know it in humans and other vertebrates, may have evolved under basically ‘social’ selection pressures. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
5345 |
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Ghirlanda, S.; Frasnelli, E.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Intraspecific competition and coordination in the evolution of lateralization |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2009 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
364 |
Issue |
1519 |
Pages |
861-866 |
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| Abstract |
Recent studies have revealed a variety of left–right asymmetries among vertebrates and invertebrates. In many species, left- and right-lateralized individuals coexist, but in unequal numbers (‘population-level’ lateralization). It has been argued that brain lateralization increases individual efficiency (e.g. avoiding unnecessary duplication of neural circuitry and reducing interference between functions), thus counteracting the ecological disadvantages of lateral biases in behaviour (making individual behaviour more predictable to other organisms). However, individual efficiency does not require a definite proportion of left- and right-lateralized individuals. Thus, such arguments do not explain population-level lateralization. We have previously shown that, in the context of prey–predator interactions, population-level lateralization can arise as an evolutionarily stable strategy when individually asymmetrical organisms must coordinate their behaviour with that of other asymmetrical organisms. Here, we extend our model showing that populations consisting of left- and right-lateralized individuals in unequal numbers can be evolutionarily stable, based solely on strategic factors arising from the balance between antagonistic (competitive) and synergistic (cooperative) interactions. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5346 |
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Ventolini, N.; Ferrero, E.A.; Sponza, S.; Della Chiesa, A.; Zucca, P.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Laterality in the wild: preferential hemifield use during predatory and sexual behaviour in the black-winged stilt |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2005 |
Publication |
Animal Behaviour |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
| Volume |
69 |
Issue |
5 |
Pages |
1077-1084 |
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| Abstract |
We recorded preferential use of the left and right monocular visual field in black-winged stilts, Himantopus himantopus, during predatory pecking and during courtship and mating behaviour in a naturalistic setting. The stilts had a population-level preference for using their right monocular visual field before predatory pecking; pecks that followed right-hemifield detection were more likely to be successful than pecks that followed left-hemifield detection, as evinced by the occurrence of swallowing and shaking head movements after pecking. In contrast, shaking behaviour, a component of courtship displays, and copulatory attempts by males were more likely to occur when females were seen with the left monocular visual field. Asymmetric hemifield use observed in natural conditions raises interesting issues as to the costs and benefits of population-level behavioural lateralization in wild animals. |
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0003-3472 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5589 |
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