Creative Control An Explanation of Species-Specific Enrichment in Mongoose Lemurs (Eulemur Mongoz) and Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus)

Hannah Brown

Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Harley, Heidi

Keywords

Mongoose Lemur, Bottlenose Dolphin, Environmental Enrichment, Captivity, Human-Animal Interaction

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

Creative enrichment designed for a species, or even for a specific individual, can provide an animal with environmental stimulation that may lead to a whole array of benefits for the animal. Exposure to speciesspecific enrichment, or enrichment that is designed for the adaptations of a particular species, encourages naturalistic behaviors by providing cues that are more biologically salient than a more generalized enrichment item. This study explores the relationship between species-specific stimuli and the production of naturalistic behaviors. An acoustic enrichment device was presented to two captive mammalian groups: mongoose lemurs (Eulemur mongoz) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Both species are highly social and communicate via vocalizations, but are they diverse in their cognitive and physiological adaptations as well as their evolutionary history. Naturalistic vocalizations from each species and a control (silence) made up three acoustic conditions that alternated during two 26-min sessions for each group. A 26-min baseline period was recorded for each group prior to object introduction. Behaviors and vocalizations were analyzed from video and audio recordings. Lemurs spent very little time interacting with the object, but they displayed more locomotion and less resting behavior during experimental sessions than the baseline session. Lemurs vocalized more when the object was present than during baseline; soft grunts were the most common vocalizations produced during any condition. Dolphins displayed more interaction/orientation behaviors overall when the experimental object was present than during the baseline condition, and they spent more time overall with the device when it was producing lemur vocalizations than when it was producing dolphin vocalizations. Dolphins spent more time vocalizing when the experimental object was present than during the baseline condition; clicks were the most common vocalizations produced by dolphins overall. These data suggest that an acoustic enrichment device will elicit an increase in a variety of behaviors, including vocalizations, in vocal species.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS