Saliveros Alexander M, Bowden-Parry Madison, McAusland Fraser, Boogert Neeltje J
Centre for Ecology and Conservation, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK.
R Soc Open Sci. 2022 Jun 8;9(6):211819. doi: 10.1098/rsos.211819. eCollection 2022 Jun.
Foraging plays a vital role in animal life histories, and learning whether unfamiliar food items are palatable is a key part of this process. Animals that engage in extractive foraging must also learn how to overcome the protective measures of their prey. While otters (subfamily Lutrinae) are a taxon known for their extractive foraging behaviour, how they learn about prey palatability and acquire extractive foraging techniques remains poorly understood. Here we investigated (i) how captive Asian short-clawed otters () learned to interact with, and extract meat from, unfamiliar natural prey and (ii) how their exploitation of such prey compared to their ability to overcome artificial foraging tasks containing familiar food rewards. Network-based diffusion analysis showed that otters learned to interact with unfamiliar natural prey by observing their group mates. However, once interacting with the prey, they learned to extract the meat mainly asocially. In addition, otters took longer to overcome the protective measures of unfamiliar natural prey than those of extractive food puzzles. Asian short-clawed otter populations are declining in the wild. Increasing our understanding of how they learn to overcome novel foraging challenges could help develop pre-release training procedures as part of reintroduction programmes for otter conservation.
觅食在动物的生活史中起着至关重要的作用，而了解不熟悉的食物是否可口是这一过程的关键部分。从事取食性觅食的动物还必须学会如何克服猎物的保护措施。虽然水獭（水獭亚科）是一个以取食性觅食行为而闻名的分类群，但它们如何了解猎物的适口性并掌握取食性觅食技巧仍知之甚少。在这里，我们研究了：（i）圈养的亚洲小爪水獭如何学会与不熟悉的天然猎物互动并从中获取肉，以及（ii）它们对这种猎物的利用情况与它们克服包含熟悉食物奖励的人工觅食任务的能力相比如何。基于网络的扩散分析表明，水獭通过观察同伴学会与不熟悉的天然猎物互动。然而，一旦与猎物互动，它们主要通过非社交方式学会获取肉。此外，水獭克服不熟悉天然猎物保护措施的时间比克服取食性食物谜题的时间更长。亚洲小爪水獭的野生种群数量正在下降。增进我们对它们如何学会克服新的觅食挑战的理解，有助于制定放生前训练程序，作为水獭保护重新引入计划的一部分。
