The common degu, or, historically, the degu, is a small hystricomorpha rodent endemic to the Chilean matorral ecoregion of central Chile. The name degu on its own indicates either the entire genus Octodon or, more commonly, just the common degu. Common degus belong to the parvorder Caviomorpha of the infraorder Hystricognathi, along with the chinchilla and guinea pig. The word degu comes from the indigenous language of Chile, Mapudungun, and the word dewü, meaning 'mouse' or 'rat'.
Anting is a maintenance behavior during which birds rub insects, usually ants, on their feathers and skin. The bird may pick up the insects in its bill and rub them on the body, or the bird may lie in an area of high density of the insects and perform dust bathing-like movements. The insects secrete liquids containing chemicals such as formic acid, which can act as an insecticide, miticide, fungicide, or bactericide. Alternatively, anting could make the insects edible by removing the distasteful acid, or, possibly supplement the bird's own preen oil. Instead of ants, birds can also use millipedes. More than 200 species of bird are known to ant. A possibly related behaviour, self-anointing, is seen in many mammals.
Grooming is the art and practice of cleaning and maintaining parts of the body. It is a species-typical behavior.
Various non-human animal species exhibit behavior that can be interpreted as homosexual or bisexual. This may include same-sex sexual activity, courtship, affection, pair bonding, and parenting among same-sex animal pairs. Various forms of this are found in every major geographic region and every major animal group. The sexual behavior of non-human animals takes many different forms, even within the same species, though homosexual behavior is best known from social species.
Licking is the action of passing the tongue over a surface, typically either to deposit saliva onto the surface, or to collect liquid, food or minerals onto the tongue for ingestion, or to communicate with other animals. Many animals both groom themselves, eat or drink by licking.
Social grooming is a behavior in which social animals, including humans, clean or maintain one another's bodies or appearances. A related term, allogrooming, indicates social grooming between members of the same species. Grooming is a major social activity and a means by which animals who live in close proximity may bond, reinforce social structures and family links, and build companionship. Social grooming is also used as a means of conflict resolution, maternal behavior, and reconciliation in some species. Mutual grooming typically describes the act of grooming between two individuals, often as a part of social grooming, pair bonding, or a precoital activity.
Cats need to communicate for a variety of reasons, including to show happiness, to express anger, to solicit attention, and to observe potential prey; cats collaborate, play, and share resources with each other. When they communicate with humans, they do so to get what they need or want, such as food, water, attention, or play.
Cat behavior is a cat's behavior and responses to events and other stimuli. Cat behavior includes body language, elimination habits, aggression, play, communication, hunting, grooming, urine marking, and face rubbing. It varies among individuals, colonies, and breeds.
Vacuum activities are innate fixed action patterns (FAPs) of animal behaviour that are performed in the absence of a sign stimulus (releaser) that normally elicit them. This type of abnormal behaviour shows that a key stimulus is not always needed to produce an activity. Vacuum activities often take place when an animal is placed in captivity and is subjected to a lack of stimuli that would normally cause a FAP.
Dust bathing is an animal behavior characterized by rolling or moving around in dust, dry earth or sand, with the likely purpose of removing parasites from fur, feathers or skin. Dust bathing is a maintenance behavior performed by a wide range of mammalian and avian species. For some animals, dust baths are necessary to maintain healthy feathers, skin, or fur, similar to bathing in water or wallowing in mud. In some mammals, dust bathing may be a way of transmitting chemical signals to the ground which marks an individual's territory.
Sham dustbathing is a behaviour performed by some birds when kept in cages with little or no access to litter, during which the birds perform all the elements of normal dustbathing, but in the complete absence of any substrate. This behaviour often has all the activities and temporal patterns of normal dustbathing, i.e. the bird initially scratches and bill-rakes at the ground, then erects its feathers and squats. Once lying down, the behaviour contains four main elements: vertical wing-shaking, head rubbing, bill-raking and scratching with one leg. Normal dustbathing is a maintenance behaviour whose performance results in dust collecting between the feathers. The dust is then subsequently shaken off which reduces the amount of feather lipids and so helps the plumage maintain good insulating capacity and may help control of ectoparasites.
Wallowing in animals is comfort behaviour during which an animal rolls about or lies in mud, water or snow. Some definitions include rolling about in dust, however, in ethology this is usually referred to as dust bathing. Wallowing is often combined with other behaviours to fulfil its purpose; for example, elephants will often blow dirt over themselves after wallowing to create a thicker "coating", or pigs will allow the mud to dry before rubbing themselves on a tree or rock to remove ectoparasites stuck in the mud.
Non-reproductive sexual behavior consists of sexual activities animals participate in that do not lead to the reproduction of the species. Although procreation continues to be the primary explanation for sexual behavior in animals, recent observations on animal behavior have given alternative reasons for the engagement in sexual activities by animals. Animals have been observed to engage in sex for social interaction bonding, exchange for significant materials, affection, mentorship pairings, sexual enjoyment, or as demonstration of social rank. Observed non-procreative sexual activities include non-copulatory mounting, oral sex, genital stimulation, anal stimulation, interspecies mating, and acts of affection, although it is doubted that they have done this since the beginning of their existence. There have also been observations of sex with cub participants, same-sex sexual interaction, as well as sex with dead animals.
Self-anointing in animals, sometimes called anointing or anting, is a behaviour whereby a non-human animal smears odoriferous substances over themselves. These substances are often the secretions, parts, or entire bodies of other animals or plants. The animal may chew these substances and then spread the resulting saliva mixture over their body, or they may apply the source of the odour directly with an appendage, tool or by rubbing their body on the source.
Bunting is a form of animal behavior, often found in cats, in which the animal butts or rubs its head against other things, including people. Bunting as a behaviour can be viewed as a variation of scent rubbing. This is when an animal, typically a carnivore, will rub its back on a scent, such as that of prey, or on the urine of an animal of the same species. Evolutionarily speaking, scent rubbing is the oldest form of scent communication and bunting is a derivative of this behaviour. Rolling in the scent of another animal was an adaptation to camouflage the scent of a predator or outside male, in order to get closer to mates.
Social immunity is any antiparasite defence mounted for the benefit of individuals other than the actor. For parasites, the frequent contact, high population density and low genetic variability makes social groups of organisms a promising target for infection: this has driven the evolution of collective and cooperative anti-parasite mechanisms that both prevent the establishment of and reduce the damage of diseases among group members. Social immune mechanisms range from the prophylactic, such as burying beetles smearing their carcasses with antimicrobials or termites fumigating their nests with naphthalene, to the active defenses seen in the imprisoning of parasitic beetles by honeybees or by the miniature 'hitchhiking' leafcutter ants which travel on larger worker's leaves to fight off parasitoid flies. Whilst many specific social immune mechanisms had been studied in relative isolation, it was not until Sylvia Cremer et al.'s 2007 paper "Social Immunity" that the topic was seriously considered. Empirical and theoretical work in social immunity continues to reveal not only new mechanisms of protection but also implications for understanding of the evolution of group living and polyandry.
Preening is a maintenance behaviour found in birds that involves the use of the beak to position feathers, interlock feather barbules that have become separated, clean plumage, and keep ectoparasites in check. Feathers contribute significantly to a bird's insulation, waterproofing and aerodynamic flight, and so are vital to its survival. Because of this, birds spend considerable time each day maintaining their feathers, primarily through preening. Several actions make up preening behaviour. Birds fluff up and shake their feathers, which helps to "rezip" feather barbules that have become unhooked. Using their beaks, they gather preen oil from a gland at the base of their tail and distribute this oil through their feathers. They draw each contour feather through their bill, nibbling it from base to tip.
Scent rubbing is a behavior where a mammal rubs its body against an object in their environment, sometimes in ones covered with strongly odored substances. It is typically shown in carnivores, although many mammals exhibit this behavior. Lowering shoulders, collapsing the forelegs, pushing forward and rubbing the chin, temples, neck, or back is how this act is performed. A variety of different odors can elicit this behavior including feces, vomit, fresh or decaying meat, insecticide, urine, repellent, ashes, human food and so on. Scent rubbing can be produced by an animal smelling novel odors, which include manufactured smells such as perfume or motor oil and carnivore smells including feces and food smells.
Sunning or basking, sometimes also known as sunbathing, is a thermoregulatory or comfort behaviour used by humans, animals, especially birds, reptiles, and insects, to help raise their body temperature, reduce the energy needed for temperature maintenance or to provide comfort. They may also have additional functions of ridding animals of ectoparasites, bacteria, or excess moisture.
Communal burrow refers to the habitat built by some species of mammals as a community habitat. There are some species that build burrows, but not communal burrows; and there are some species that live in communal groups, but do not construct burrows or any other type of habitat.
