Ontogenia del comportamiento del lince ibérico (Lynx pardinus) en cautividad

Resumo

The Iberian lynx is one of the most endangered mammal species in the world. The captive breeding is one of the main measures implemented for the conservation of this species. This thesis aims to describe the physical and behavioral ontogeny of Iberian lynx cubs born in captivity and to know the factors that may influence its development, in order to improve the husbandry of the species in captivity. It was tracked the behavior of the Iberian lynx cubs born in the Iberian Lynx Breeding Centers of "El Acebuche" (Huelva, Spain) and "La Olivilla" (Jaen, Spain) between 2005 and 2013, by a video surveillance system, that allowed the remote data collection, avoiding the disturbances arising from the presence of the observer close to the animals. The Iberian lynx is a semi-altricial species. The cubs were born inside a den and were not able to walk, its sensory development was relatively backward and they were dependent on the mother for feeding. During the first month of life, there was the sensory and motor maturation, allowing the cubs to leave the den, leading to the major changes in behavior. The growth of the cubs fitted to von Bertalanffy function. Males grew faster than females, so they were an 8% larger in adulthood; whereas the rearing method (mother vs hand-reared) modified the growth rate, but not the adult body mass. The lactation occupied much of the time of the cubs during the first weeks of life, but it decreased rapidly as grew. The weaning period, in which the cubs feed both on solid food and on milk, occurred during the last third of lactation period, so the main role of lactation in the Iberian lynx seems to be the nutrition of the cubs. Once out of the den, daily activity increased until the third month of life, after which it remained constant at around 50%. The bimodal circadian pattern with peaks in the twilights emerged in the second month of life and was fully established after the third month. The increase in daily activity was accompanied by the emergence of new behaviors like play and predation. It was observed four categories of play in the Iberian lynx cubs. The social play was the first in appear at one month old and occupied most of the playtime of the cubs. The locomotor play was observed for the first time at 55 days, the object play at 59 days and the predatory play at 61 days. The play behavior reached its highest prevalence between weeks 11 and 14. Then decreased, but it did not disappear completely at seven months old. Meanwhile, the process of learning to hunt began when the cubs were one month old and the mother took them a prey for the first time. The early stages of learning depended on maternal initiative, which facilitated the tasks of ingestion and capture the prey, until the cubs were able to hunt without help at 15 weeks. The basic sequence of predatory ethogram consisted on search, attack, capture, bite, move the prey and eat; and sometimes was disrupted by play bouts or fights. During the attack, the cubs used four hunting techniques, in order of prevalence: harassment, ambushing, stalking and persecution. The hunting success was 53%. According to the results of the thesis, it is estimated that the duration of the four periods of development in altricial species for the Iberian lynx is: neonatal period (weeks 1-3 ); transition period (weeks 4 and 5), socialization period (weeks 6-15) and juvenile period (week 16 to sexual maturation).