BioOne.org will be down briefly for maintenance on 17 December 2024 between 18:00-22:00 Pacific Time US. We apologize for any inconvenience.
How to translate text using browser tools
1 January 1998 Behavioral Interactions Between Juvenile Nine-banded Armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) in Staged Encounters
W. J. Loughry, Gena M. Dwyer, Colleen M. McDonough
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Juvenile nine-banded armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) discriminate between the scents of siblings and nonsiblings, spending more time near and investigating more often the scent of a sibling. In the present experiment we examined whether the ability to make such distinctions generates behavioral differences in how juveniles interact with one another. Two juveniles (siblings or nonsiblings) were placed in an arena and the ensuing interactions were videotaped. Contrary to expectation, juvenile armadillos showed no evidence of behavioral discrimination between siblings and nonsiblings. All interactions were highly amicable and aggressive behavior was almost completely absent. The absence of behavioral discrimination between juvenile armadillos may be due to (1) the lack of an appropriate context for discrimination in our experiments; (2) ontogenetic considerations such that only older animals actually exhibit discrimination, or (3) low genetic variability in our population that makes discrimination less important.

W. J. Loughry, Gena M. Dwyer, and Colleen M. McDonough "Behavioral Interactions Between Juvenile Nine-banded Armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) in Staged Encounters," The American Midland Naturalist 139(1), 125-132, (1 January 1998). https://doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031(1998)139[0125:BIBJNB]2.0.CO;2
Received: 4 November 1996; Accepted: 1 May 1997; Published: 1 January 1998
JOURNAL ARTICLE
8 PAGES

This article is only available to subscribers.
It is not available for individual sale.
+ SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top