Evidence that rats discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar putative urinary odorants of adult male conspecifics
✍ Scribed by Barry Fass; Paul E. Gutermann; David A. Stevens
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1978
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 318 KB
- Volume
- 4
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0096-140X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
A d a m [ 1976; Lehman and Adams, 19771 suggested that a resident rat makes an olfactory comparison of cage odor and other rat odor prior to attacking an unfamiliar conspecific intruder. The findings of the present study are consistent with the notion that rats discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar putative urinary odorants Adult male albino rats were tested for preferences between areas treated with familiar urine (1 1 hours pretest exposure), unfamiliar urine (no pretest exposure), and untreated areas. Subjects (N = 12) preferred areas treated with familiar urine over ones treated with unfamiliar urine (p < 0.05). Also, they (N = 12 per preference-test group) preferred areas treated with either urine over untreated ones (familiar versus clean, p < 0.01; unfamiliar versus clean, p < 0.05).