A case of suckling and allosuckling behaviour in captive common hippopotamus

PLUHÁČEK, Jan a BARTOŠOVÁ, Jitka. A case of suckling and allosuckling behaviour in captive common hippopotamus. Mammalian Biology, 2011, 76, 380-383. ISSN 1616-5047.
Kateg. publikaceVědecké publikace impaktované
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Abstrakt

Despite the fact that the common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) has been recognized for a long time not much is known about its biology including suckling behaviour. This paper is the first detailed report on suckling and allosuckling behaviour in captive common hippopotamus. During 18 months of observations we recorded 71 suckling bouts including 11 bouts from the grandmother of the calf, also housed at Ostrava Zoo. Both females (mother and grandmother) suckled in the water as well as on land. Whilst the mother initiated one third of the bouts, the grandmother never initiated any suckling bout. We found that the length of suckling bouts increased with the age of the calf. When suckled in the water the interval between the two last emergences was longer than all other intervals, indicating two phases of suckling bout: massage and milk intake. The results of our study also demonstrate that at least some of estimates of reproductive physiology and population ecology could be partly misleading.

ProjektVnitrodruhové a mezidruhové aspekty kojení koňovitých, Udržitelný rozvoj chovu hospodářských zvířat v evropském modelu multifunkčního zemědělství
OdděleníEtologie