Habitat use monitoring is necessary for a comprehensive understanding of the biological and psychological requirements of animals under human care, facilitating improved exhibit designs and promoting animal welfare. Current studies focused on the space use of the exhibit while limited studies examined the pathway use of the zoo-housed animals. This study aimed to investigate the habitat use of An An, the world-oldest male giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) at Ocean Park Hong Kong using a pathway utilization monitoring method.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDolphins in the wild cooperate to find food, gain and maintain access to mating partners, look after their young ones, or for the sheer joy of play. Under human care, environmental enrichments provide mental and physical stimulation and opportunities for the dolphins to practice their natural abilities. In this review, I focus on a set of enrichment devices we designed for cooperative problem-solving.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe arapaima () is one of the largest freshwater fish species, known to exceed 3 m in total length. It is listed as Data Deficient by the IUCN. is native to the Amazon River basin where they are an important food source.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRotational behaviour has been observed when dolphins track or detect targets, however, its role in echolocation is unknown. We used computed tomography data of one live and one recently deceased bottlenose dolphin, together with measurements of the acoustic properties of head tissues, to perform acoustic property reconstruction. The anatomical configuration and acoustic properties of the main forehead structures between the live and deceased dolphins were compared.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Appl Anim Welf Sci
February 2024
Ex-situ research in aquariums and zoological settings not only support scientific advancement, they also provide opportunities for education, facilitating both mental and physical stimulation, consequently improving welfare. This study aimed to investigate the impact of cognitive testing on the well-being of a group of male Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins. The occurrence of affiliative, aggressive and potentially stereotypical behaviors was assessed based on seven monitored behavior types and compared between "Session days" and "Non-session days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderwater imaging sonars are widely used for oceanic exploration but are bulky and expensive for some applications. The sonar system of dolphins, which uses sound pulses called clicks to investigate their environment, offers superior shape discrimination capability compared to human-derived imaging sonars of similar size and frequency. In order to gain better understanding of dolphin sonar imaging, we train a dolphin to acoustically interrogate certain objects and match them visually.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlliance formation plays a crucial part in male dolphins' lives. These partnerships may last for decades or even for a lifetime; thus, partner choice and the maintenance of these relationships are both considered key components of alliance formation. In our previous investigations, pairs of adult male dolphins showed a high success rate in cooperative manipulation of a cognitive enrichment device.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDue to the diversity of the phenomenon, dolphin cooperation has attracted considerable research interest in both wild populations and those under human care. Dolphins cooperate in various contexts, including group hunting, alloparental care, social learning, social play and alliance formation for securing mates. This investigation focused on the effect of group size and partner choice in a cooperative task using systematic group testing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSocial living, long lifespan and advanced cognitive skills provided favourable conditions for the development of pro-social behaviours and cooperative activities in cetacean. Dolphins have been observed to collaborate for various purposes, finding food, finding mates or raising and teaching younger individuals. This study investigated the potential impact of demographic factors (sex and age), social factors (relatedness and group size), and individual experience in a cooperative problem solving task.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDolphins use their biosonar to discriminate objects with different features through the returning echoes. Cross-modal matching experiments were conducted with a resident bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus). Four types of objects composed of different materials (water-filled PVC pipes, air-filled PVC pipes, foam ball arrays, and PVC pipes wrapped in closed-cell foam) were used in the experiments, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCognitive enrichment aims to provide animals with opportunities to use their cognitive skills and to promote behaviors associated with positive wellbeing. Cooperation in mammals has been recorded during various behavioral contexts such as hunting, mating, playing, and parental care. Coordinated activity, often with some level of problem-solving action included, is required during cooperation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPerceptual and behavioral asymmetry has been observed in a wide range of vertebrate and invertebrate species with its origin estimated to go back over 500 million years. Previously, hemispheric lateralization in marine mammals has been recorded during foraging, parental care, preferred swimming direction as well as when solving cognitive challenges. Visual laterality has been demonstrated in preferred eye use and performance accuracy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHematologic and plasma biochemistry parameters of the white stork (Ciconia ciconia) were studied. Blood samples were taken from a total of 80 adult white storks kept in captivity in Hungarian zoos and bird repatriation stations, between 2002 and 2006. Hematologic (packed cell volume, 46.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn broiler breeder flocks in one broiler integration in Hungary, a new syndrome appeared in January 2005 with initially four successive post-peak flocks experiencing significant decreases in egg production. Clinically birds became depressed and there was a small increase in the mortality rate. Postmortem examinations revealed enlarged livers in up to 19% of birds dying, and enlarged spleens in some.
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