The role of the stimulus complexity, age and experience in the expression of exploratory behavior in the Chimango Caracara, Milvago chimango.

BIONDI, L. M., GUIDO, J. M., BÓ, M. S., MUZIO, R. N. Y VASSALLO, A. I.

ANIMAL COGNITION

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG

Lugar: HEIDELBERG; Año: 2015

1435-9448

Exploration represents an important way bywhich organisms evaluate environment information. Thedecision of whether or not an animal should investigateenvironmental changes may influence the extent to whichanimals learn about their surroundings and cope withhabitat modifications. We analysed exploration behaviourin a suburban population of a raptor species, the ChimangoCaracara, Milvago chimango, by examining how age,previous experience and object complexity influence novelobject exploration. Our findings showed that object complexitydid not influence caracaras initial approach andcontact with objects, but did influence the degree ofengagement during exploratory activities, as measured bytotal exploration time and number of exploration events.These variables were higher for complex objects than forsimple objects. Experience resulted in less exploration ofsimple objects. It is likely that, for caracaras, simpleobjects are easier to encode and recall than complexobjects, so additional exploration of such objects would notprovide further information. Results suggest that exploratorybehaviour in this raptor was guided more by thebenefits of a greater quantity of information obtained byexploring complex objects, than by the risks associated tothis activity. We can conclude that caracaras cope withnovel features in their surroundings with a novelty-seekingstrategy, characteristic for generalist species in discoveringearly new resources opportunities, and which might be adetermining factor for adaptive responses to environmentmodification.