HANNAN ABDUL KAHLIQZMPI 16-04

PUNJAB UNIVERSITYZOOLOGY DEPARTMENT

SUBJECT: ADVANCED MAMMALOGY

Social Behavior

Social:

Being social means that you have relationship withsociety or its organization.

Behavior:

The way in which an animal behaves in response toa particular situation or stimulus that comes fromthe environment.

Social Behavior of Mammals

• Social Behavior of mammals mainlycomprises of Social Systems

– A social system is the patterned series ofinterrelationships existing betweenindividuals, groups and forming a whole.

– Mammals have several orders and every orderhas its specific social system showing thediversity of social behavior.

• Few families in metatherians developed thesocial behavior.

–Petauridae:

• Petaurus breviceps, the honey glider, developed best in thisfamily.

• Cohesive groups are dominated, protected and run by males.

–Macropedidae:

•Developed to varying degrees.

•Highly developed isMacropus parryi, the whiptail wallaby.

• In whiptail, the population is called mobs.

•Occupy a home range but not properly defended.

• Social system is poor, but they are dominated by malehierarchy which is developed by ritualized fighting.

• In estrus, female is protected by a dominant male withexclusive mating rights.

• Vombatidae:

• Unusual behavior

• Males develop burrows, are philopatric (returning to a sameplace).

• Share their burrows with their kin.

• Females disperse and less likely to associate with otherfemales.

Chiroptera

• Sexual Behavior:

– Females are so large in number that they are not defensible.Due to same reason male bats have to be polygynous.

– Few species are solitary except for mating

– In some families, both sexes separate from each other whenthe pups are born.

– Females form nursery of kids.

– After pups mature, sexes reunite.

– In buffy flower bat, multi-male multi-female system exists

– Their system is mainly lek based.

• Roosting Behavior:

• Round eared bats create their own roosts and are calledcamping bats.

• Others excavate the termite nets and attract the females.

Rodentia

• A bit advanced than the previous ones.

• Social behavior is influenced by:

– Daily and seasonal activity

– Distribution of food

– Environmental constraints

– Predation

• Black Tailed Prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus):

• Highly social, social units are called Coteris.

• Coterie: Composed of one adult male, several females and young ones.

• Without dominant hierarchy.

• Everything inside the premises of coterie are shared by all members.

• Hostility with neighbors always exist.

• Two syllable call used to claim the territorial ownership.

• They become familiar to each other, and to recognize a member of sameterritory, they have developed a Kissing behavior.

• Advantages of coterie: Watching out for danger, many voices foralarm, low vegetation due to continuous foraging, long term occupancyof area.

• Family Lemuridae:

– Mouse lemurs have a special social unit of “population nuclei”, dominated by 3-4 males and several females are also there.

– Though they are a social pack but they forage alone and cannot be regarded as the best one.

– Ring tailed lemur is more advanced. Their social unit is called a troop.

– Troop contains females and males in equal numbers.

– Dominated by females, male hierarchy exists but dominant male does not have access to females every time.

– Little intertroop contact.

• Baboon family:

• In families like baboon, the dominant leader male is focal point and all group is geared by him.

• Female status depends upon associated male and his aggressive behavior.

• If he fails in confrontations, her status declines.

• Baboons living in savanna are more vulnerable as food is scattered and individuals searching far areas are easily accessible to predators.

• Males are different than females as they contain huge canines, larger in sizeand strong body.

• Mating patterns involve the interference of dominant males as onlydominant ones are allowed to mate with the female in her peak time.

• Chimpanzees (P. troglodytes):

– Basic group basically consist of 30-80 members, which is loose and candissociate into parties

– Highly specialized voice signals for food or as alarms for whole socialgroup.

– Hunt in groups and are opportunistic.

– Not very gentle and males seem to kill the males of other groups.

• Very few carnivores have evolved social behavior.

• Coyote is social but only opportunistically.

• In abundance of food they form packs, but when the food is rare they areSolitary.

• Small diurnal procoyonids are social, their unit is called bands.

• A band consists of 30 females and scattered males.

• Some females in the band are very aggressive as they are not related toothers, but they remain in the pack because leaving the pack will be morevulnerable.

• Mongoose are diurnal and highly social, especially dwarf mongoose.

• Consists approximately on 8 individuals, dominant “alpha” family (mostaged), an additional male two females (helpers) and some juveniles.

• Leader is usually the female and they sleep feed and live together.

• Alarms calls and contact calls are used abundantly.

• Helpers do most of the foraging and baby sitting etc.

• Canis lupus are highly socialized, dominance hierarchy exists and they cankill large prey in groups.

• Hyena has a basic social unit known as clan, consisting of 80 animals.

• Disrupted by large migrations of wild beasts and Zebra, resulting in drasticfood shift.

• During food shift, clans evacuate their territory and commute to migratingherds. Many of them especially females die during this movement.

• Territory is marked by scent and defended, fightings are violent andindividuals are murdered.

• Females are larger than males and are dominant due to strong bonding.

• When dominant female killed, others tend to replace her by competing eachother “who eats food fastly” rather than showing the power.

• In spotted hyena, there are three classes of a group namely females, cubsand three male classes.

• Males sometime remain into their natal group or leave the group and joinother, these time of males have low reputition in previous clan.

• When two different hyenas meet, they recognize each other with the help offamiliar genitalia.

• Lions have a fairly stable social unit called pride, consisting of 3-12 adultfemales and one or more adult males. (no outside females)

• At age of 3, female may be accepted as member or forced to quit the pride.

• Pride is driven by several adult males who defend it and make it peacefuland stable group, and members are affectionate.

• Opportunistically they may hunt alone but mostly in groups.

• Males do not continuously remain in the group because group basicallyconsists of their grandmothers sisters and brothers.

• Males leave the pride mostly in groups as they may be brothers.

• The leaving group tries to take over another pride, in group they oftensucceed.

• After taking over, they disturb the estrus cycle of females, occasionally killtheir kids and start over their reproductive cycle after which they protect &take care of them.

• All the females of the pride take care of the new born and a cub can belactated by other females.

• Males fight to mate with female

• Size of the pride is controlled by food shortage, life span is long.

E l e p h a n t s

• Several levels of social system– FAMILY

– KIN

– BACHERLOR HERD

• Family consists of grandmothers, daughters, sons, grandsons and grand daughters. Mostly 10-20 members are there.

• Females bond socially for nearly 50 years

• Kinship involves several family groups living in same vicinity, occasion and mingle peaceably. They are not together except during the migration times.

• At their maturity, bulls leave their family and join Bachelor herds, all male herd.

• It is dominated by ritual dominance , and dominant male gets a female in estrus.

Ungu la t e s

• Bovids are most widely studies and occupy open grasslands as the foodsupply is abundant.

• Blue duikers are small, forest dwelling, African antelops.

• Form monogamous pairs and defend small territory ranging 3-4 hectares insize and marked by scents.

• Pair bonds are recognized by social licking and mutual pressing ofpreorbital glands.

• Impala: dominant males maintain the boundaries of the herds.

• Territories have specific area each protected and ruled by dominated males.

• If a female enters in the herd accidentally, dominant male does not let hergo.

• Dominant male always faces the rival males coming from outside, hecontinuously keeps a check on estrus and bachelor female, keeping othermales away from them.

• African buffalos: Mainly comprise 50-2000 animals and constant amountis 350.

• For two years, young male stays closer to her mother, after that they leavetheir mother and form subgroups within a group.

• Linear dominance hierarchy exists between them as a result of sparing.

• Males of more than 10 years leave the herd and become extremely sedentary.

• Most dominating males have highest approach towards estrus females.

Any Questions