Duncan, P. (1982). Foal killing by stallions. Appl. Animal. Ethol., 8(6), 567–570.
Abstract: Feral horses live in social systems similar to those of some species in which infant killing has been reported (e.g. lions), but such behaviour has been reported neither in horses nor in any other ungulate. The results of interviews with owners of free-ranging horses (Camargue breed) are given which show that, though rare, infant killing occurs in this breed, and that it seems to be confined to male foals. It is argued that the observed behaviour cannot simply be considered as pathological, and that close attention should be paid to the possibility that it occurs in wild and feral equids.
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Houpt, K. A. (1980). Review of some research areas of applied and theoretical interest in domestic animal behavior. Appl. Animal. Ethol., 6(2), 111–119.
Abstract: There are numerous areas worthy of study in the field of domestic animal behavior or applied ethology. In this paper a few areas are offerred as particularly worthy of attention. These areas are worthwhile either because they have received little or no study and are of basic interest or because they have application to current problems of livestock production. The study of cat behavior falls in the former category. Neither the food and water sources, the reproductive success rate nor even the social interactions of cats in the large populations found in both rural and urban environments are known. Pigs as a species have already been the subjects of many behavior studies; nevertheless, there are still gaps in our knowledge of the underlying principles of swine behavior. The physiological basis of maternal behavior, for example, has not been studied in swine or in any domestic species. The sensory basis of udder location by the neonatal piglet deserves study also. Some aspects of olfactory and vocal communication of pigs have been studied, but only one of what may be a large number of pheromones of pigs has been chemically identified. The message conveyed by the vocal interactions between adult swine of the same sex is unknown, as is the role of facial and postural expressions in porcine communication. The two major problems of pig behavior under conditions of intensive livestock management are tail biting and reproductive failure. The application of behavioral techniques to these problems might help to attenuate those problems as well as broaden our understanding of normal pig behavior. Horse behavior has also been a relatively neglected field of study. Of particular interest is the significance of the flehmen gesture used by both mares and stallions in a variety of situations. Flehmen may be related to the function of the vomeronasal organ, but both observational and physiological studies should be performed to verify the hypothesis.
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Podos, J. (1964). Early perspectives on the evolution of behavior: Charles Otis Whitman and Oskar Heinroth. Ethol Ecol Evol, 6(4), 467–480.
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Rubenstein D. I.,. (1982). Reproductive value and behavioral strategies: coming of age in monkeys and horses. Perspect Ethol, 5, 469–487.
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Houpt, K. A., Law, K., & Martinisi, V. (1978). Dominance hierarchies in domestic horses. Appl. Animal. Ethol., 4(3), 273–283.
Abstract: Dominance hierarchies were studied in 11 herds of domestic horses and ponies (Equus caballus). A paired feeding test was utilized to establish the dominance--subordination relationship between each pair of animals in a herd. Aggressive actions, threats, bites, kicks and chases were also recorded. In small herds linear hierarchies were formed, but in large herds triangular relationships were observed. Aggression was correlated with dominance rank. Body weight, but not age, appear to affect rank in the equine hierarchy. Juvenile horses were more likely to share feed with each other than were adult horses and were usually subordinate to adult horses. The daughters of a dominant mare were dominant within their own herds.
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Hinz, K., Sennet, S., Maros, K., & Krueger, K. (2015). Waiting behaviour in front of a computerized feeding system in an active stable – Effects on heart rate, heart rate variability and sensory laterality in horses. In Current research in applied ethology [Aktuelle Arbeiten zur artgemäßen Tierhaltung. Darmstadt: KTBL-Schrift 510.
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Bamford, A. J., Monadjem, A., & Hardy, I. C. W. (2010). Associations of Avian Facial Flushing and Skin Colouration with Agonistic Interaction Outcomes. Ethology, , no-no.
Abstract: Abstract Facial flushing, a colour change caused by variation of blood flow through highly vascularized skin, has been observed in taxonomically diverse bird species but the function of the behaviour has not been assessed. Lappet-faced vultures, Aegypius tracheliotos, have unfeathered heads that can rapidly flush from pink to dark red, and this has been hypothesized to indicate contest ability in vulture gatherings. We show that adults with flushed heads won most interactions against those with pale heads. A previously unnoticed colour variation of the throat, visible only when the head is flushed, was also related to the outcome of interactions: blue-throated adults participated in, and won, more interactions than red-throated adults. We suggest that the non-fixed groups of which lappet-faced vulture populations consist promote the evolution of signals of dominance that can be adjusted extremely rapidly.
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Collier, T. C., Blumstein, D. T., Girod, L., & Taylor, C. E. (2010). Is Alarm Calling Risky? Marmots Avoid Calling from Risky Places. Ethology, , no-no.
Abstract: Abstract Alarm calling is common in many species. A prevalent assumption is that calling puts the vocalizing individual at increased risk of predation. If calling is indeed costly, we need special explanations for its evolution and maintenance. In some, but not all species, callers vocalize away from safety and thus may be exposed to an increased risk of predation. However, for species that emit bouts with one or a few calls, it is often difficult to identify the caller and find the precise location where a call was produced. We analyzed the spatial dynamics of yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris) alarm calling using an acoustic localization system to determine the location from where calls were emitted. Marmots almost always called from positions close to the safety of their burrows, and, if they produced more than one alarm call, tended to end their calling bouts closer to safety than they started them. These results suggest that for this species, potential increased predation risk from alarm calling is greatly mitigated and indeed calling may have limited predation costs.
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Martín, J., López, P., Bonati, B., & Csermely, D. (2010). Lateralization When Monitoring Predators in the Wild: A Left Eye Control in the Common Wall Lizard (Podarcis muralis). Ethology, , no-no.
Abstract: Abstract Lateralization is the function specialization between left and right brain hemispheres. It is now ascertained in ectotherms too, where bias in eye use for different tasks, i.e., visual lateralization, is widespread. The lateral eye position on the head of ectotherm animals, in fact, allows them to observe left/right stimuli independently and allows lateralized individuals to carry out left and right perceived tasks at the same time. A recent study conducted on common wall lizards, Podarcis muralis, showed that lizards predominantly monitor a predator with the left eye while escaping. However, this work was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting owing to the difficulty of carrying out lateralization experiments under natural conditions. Nevertheless, field studies could provide important information to support what was previously found in the laboratory and demonstrate that these traits occur in nature. In this study, we conducted a field study on the antipredatory behavior of P. muralis lizards. We simulated predatory attacks on lizards in their natural environment. We found no lateralization in the measure of eye used by the lizard to monitor the predator before escaping from it, but the eye used was probably determined by the relative position of the lizard and the predator just before the attack. This first eye used did not affect escape decisions; lizards chose to escape toward the nearest refuge irrespective of whether it was located to the lizard’s left or right side. However, once they had escaped to a refuge, lizards had a left eye–mediated bias to monitor the predator when first emerging from the refuge, and this bias was likely independent of other environmental variables. Hence, these field findings support a left eye–mediated observation of the predator in P. muralis lizards, which confirms previous findings in this and other species.
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McFarland, R., & Majolo, B. (2011). Reconciliation and the Costs of Aggression in Wild Barbary Macaques (Macaca sylvanus): A Test of the Integrated Hypothesis. Ethology, , no-no.
Abstract: The ‘integrated hypothesis’ predicts that reconciliation (the post-conflict friendly interaction between former opponents observed in various group-living species) functions to reduce anxiety and the risk of aggression from the former opponent or a bystander in the aftermath of a conflict. It also predicts that relationship quality between opponents affects the occurrence of reconciliation and modulates the anxious response of the opponents after a conflict. Because of the asymmetric nature of aggressive interactions, the cost of aggression is likely to differ between the victim and the aggressor. The aim of this study was to test the predictions of the ‘integrated hypothesis’ independently for the victim and the aggressor of a conflict. We collected data on two wild groups of Barbary macaques. This study represents, to our knowledge, the first systematic test of the integrated hypothesis on wild, non-provisioned animals. Victims of aggression were at a greater risk of receiving aggression from the former opponent or a bystander after a conflict and showed elevated anxiety. We found no such costs for the aggressor. Reconciliation reduced anxiety in the victim but did not reduce their risk of receiving aggression. Finally, relationship quality affected the occurrence of reconciliation but did not modulate post-conflict anxiety. The results of our study show that the costs of aggression are asymmetrically distributed between the victim and the aggressor. Such differences are likely to lead to different social tactics used by the victim and the aggressor in the aftermath of a conflict.
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