Pangolins are of conservation concern as one of the most heavily poached, yet least understood mammals. The Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) in particular is a critically endangered species. Here, we investigate the behaviour of these pangolins, for the first time, using a battery of cognitive tasks based on a manipulation of available sensory information. In an object-choice task in which only one of two containers was baited with food, the pangolins were able to find the food with olfactory information alone (N = 2), but not with visual or acoustic information alone (N = 1). The single subject tested on all three domains was further tested on how he used smell to find food by providing him with an opportunity to find it from a controlled distance or by using scent trails as a guide. The results suggest that our subject may have the capacity to exploit scent trails left by prey which can be tracked to a final source, though we found no evidence to suggest that he had the ability to initiate hunts based on distant prey odors. Despite the small sample size, this is the first controlled experiment to investigate pangolin foraging behaviour and cognition, which may have implications for the future protection of pangolin habitat based on the location of prey species.

译文

:穿山甲作为水煮程度最高,但了解最少的哺乳动物之一,值得关注。 da他穿山甲(Manis javanica)特别是极度濒危的物种。在这里,我们首次基于对可用感官信息的操纵,使用一系列认知任务来研究这些穿山甲的行为。在选择食物的任务中,只有两个容器中的一个被食物诱饵,穿山甲只能通过嗅觉信息找到食物(N food = 2),而不能仅通过视觉或听觉信息找到食物(N = 1)。在这三个领域中测试的单个受试者,通过为他提供从可控距离找到气味的机会或以气味踪迹为指导的机会,进一步测试了他如何使用气味寻找食物。结果表明,我们的对象可能具有利用猎物留下的气味痕迹的能力,可以追踪到最终来源,尽管我们没有发现证据表明他具有根据遥远的猎物气味进行狩猎的能力。尽管样本量很小,但这是第一个研究穿山甲觅食行为和认知行为的对照实验,这可能对基于猎物种类的穿山甲栖息地的未来保护产生影响。

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