caa a22 4500 605541787 CHVBK 20210128100918.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10071-014-0810-8 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10071-014-0810-8 Discrimination of familiarity and sex from chemical cues in the dung by wild southern white rhinoceros [Elektronische Daten] [Ivana Cinková, Richard Policht] Communication in rhinos is primarily mediated by the vocal and olfactory signals as they have relatively poor eyesight. White rhinos are the most social of all the rhinoceros species, they defecate at common dungheaps and the adult bulls use dung and urine to mark their territory. Chemical communication may therefore be particularly important in the social interactions of white rhinos, and its knowledge could be very helpful in their management and conservation. However, no studies have investigated up until now the olfactory discrimination in any rhinoceros species in the wild. We have experimentally studied the reactions of the wild southern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) to the dung of familiar and unfamiliar adult females and adult territorial males. We registered the number of sniffing events, the duration of sniffing and the latency of the vigilance posture from the onset of sniffing. The dung of unfamiliar rhinos was sniffed longer than that of familiar rhinos. The rhinos showed a shorter latency of vigilance posture to the familiar dung of males than that of females. For unfamiliar dung, they displayed a shorter latency of vigilance posture to female than male dung. Our results indicate that the rhinos are able to discriminate the familiarity and sex of conspecifics from the smell of their dung. Olfactory cues could therefore play an important role in the social relationships and spatial organization of the southern white rhinoceros. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2014 Southern white rhinoceros nationallicence Ceratotherium simum nationallicence Olfactory discrimination nationallicence Communication nationallicence Dung nationallicence Familiarity nationallicence Cinková Ivana Department of Zoology and Laboratory of Ornithology, Faculty of Science, Palacký University, 17. listopadu 50, 771 46, Olomouc, Czech Republic aut Policht Richard Department of Ethology, Institute of Animal Science, Prague, Czech Republic aut Animal Cognition Springer Berlin Heidelberg 18/1(2015-01-01), 385-392 1435-9448 18:1<385 2015 18 10071 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0810-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0810-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Cinková Ivana Department of Zoology and Laboratory of Ornithology, Faculty of Science, Palacký University, 17. listopadu 50, 771 46, Olomouc, Czech Republic aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Policht Richard Department of Ethology, Institute of Animal Science, Prague, Czech Republic aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Animal Cognition Springer Berlin Heidelberg 18/1(2015-01-01), 385-392 1435-9448 18:1<385 2015 18 10071