Journal article
Contributions of Endothermy to Huddling Behavior in Infant Norway Rats (Rattus norvegicus) and Syrian Golden Hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus )
Journal of comparative psychology (1983), Vol.116(3), pp.240-246
09/2002
DOI: 10.1037/0735-7036.116.3.240
PMID: 12234073
Abstract
Infant Syrian golden hamsters (
Mesocricetus auratus
) do not exhibit endogenous heat production before 3 weeks of age and do not huddle effectively during cold exposure, gaining little thermoregulatory benefit from the presence of multiple littermates. In contrast, infant Norway rats (
Rattus norvegicus
) produce heat endogenously and are effective at maintaining elevated body temperatures by huddling. Therefore, the ineffective huddling of infant hamsters may be due to the absence of endogenous heat production. The huddling behavior of infants in mixed huddles of 8-day-old hamsters and weight-matched 4-5-day-old rats was observed to explore this possibility. The results indicate that hamsters, even when cold, effectively gain access to heat-producing rats, supporting the idea that endothermy contributes to the behavior of huddling by providing heat to each individual and thermal stimuli to other infants to support aggregation.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Contributions of Endothermy to Huddling Behavior in Infant Norway Rats (Rattus norvegicus) and Syrian Golden Hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus )
- Creators
- Greta Sokoloff - Department of Psychology, Indiana University BloomingtonMark S Blumberg - Program in Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of comparative psychology (1983), Vol.116(3), pp.240-246
- DOI
- 10.1037/0735-7036.116.3.240
- PMID
- 12234073
- NLM abbreviation
- J Comp Psychol
- ISSN
- 0735-7036
- eISSN
- 1939-2087
- Publisher
- American Psychological Association
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 09/2002
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Biology
- Record Identifier
- 9984002458502771
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