Suckling behaviour in the brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) |
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Authors: | J A McLean and J F Speakman |
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Institution: | Department of Zoology, University of Aberdeen, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen, Scotland AB9 2TN |
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Abstract: | Thirty-two adult female brown long-eard bats were taken into captivity. Eight individuals gave birth to single young in captivity (known mother-young pairs), 10 were lactating when captured (putative mother-young pairs), and the remaining 14 bats were non-reproductive. Bats were maintained in five groups consisting of females from sigle(n=3) or mixed (n=2) wild roosts. All bats were housed in outdoor, free-flight enclosures and fed mainly on free-flying noctuid moths. Bats were individually were determined daily (n=152) for a single gruup of bats containing four known mother-young pairs and five non-reproductive bats. The probability of a being attached to the nipple declined from 100% of records at 1-5 days of age to 5% of records at 36-40 days of age. Females were always found suckling their own young. Suckling associations were determined using infra-red sensitive video-recordings of bat behaviour within the roost box. For both known (n=8) and putative mother-young pairs (n=10), there were no records of young attached to lactating females other than their own mothers (from the same or different wild roosts). |
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