Ethogram of Sacalia quadriocellata (Reptilia: Testudines: Geoemydidae) in Captivity

作者：Yuxiang Liu, Jie Wang, Haitao Shi, Robert W. Murphy, Meiling Hong, Bin He, Jonathan J. Fong, Jichao Wang, Lirong Fu · 发表于：Journal of Herpetology · 年份：2009 · DOI：10.1670/07-277r4.1 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Turtle Biology and Conservation、Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies、Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

To construct an ethogram of Sacalia quadriocellata and introduce coding system into chelonian behavior research for quantitative comparison, 15 captive S. quadriocellata (eight females and seven males) were observed for one year using a digital surveillance system, and an ethogram constructed. Fourteen types of states and 84 types of events were recorded. Seventy-five behaviors were defined and described, and these were classified into eight categories of behavior: Feeding, Elimination, Conflict, Alert, Rest, Locomotion, Courtship, and Other. Feeding, Elimination, and Locomotion are frequent behaviors, whereas Conflict and Other behaviors are seldom observed. Mainly, this may be caused by environmental conditions that eliminate these plastic behaviors (e.g., Conflict and Other behaviors) and keep the nonplastic behaviors (e.g., Feeding, Elimination, and Locomotion). Finally, the comparison between S. quadriocellata and other chelonian species indicate that the behavioral patterns are similar on the whole, but the Conflict behaviors of S. quadriocellata are milder than other species.