^{Context or arousal? Function of drumming in Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus)}.

ABSTRACT: Drumming is a non-vocal auditory display producing airborne as well as seismic vibrations by tapping body extremities on a surface. It is mostly described as an alarm signal but is also discussed to signal dominance or mating quality. To clarify the function of drumming in Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus), we compared the occurrence of drumming during predator, opposite-sex and same-sex encounters. We tested 48 captive Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) in three experiments. In predator experiments, subjects were exposed alone or with their cagemate to aerial and terrestrial predator dummies. In social encounter experiments, familiar and unfamiliar male-female dyads and same-sex dyads were confronted. For the same-sex encounters, a dominance index was calculated for each su

SUBMITTER: Silberstein Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11386350 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature