Any cat owner will acknowledge the fact that cats can be extremely stubborn. They let you hear loud and clear that they want to come in, but when you open the door, they just sit at the doorstep and stare at you. And they can be extremely picky when it comes to food. If the cat doesn’t like it, it will refuse to eat. Reason enough for the pet food industry to try to find out what cats really like.
Topics: The Observer XT, video observation, coding schemes, cats
Traditional standard tests with rats or mice to study human diseases or to test drugs generally take minutes to a few hours. A combination of these tests can give valuable information about the behavior of the rodents. However, these tests are carried out immediately after human interference. Therefore, the behavior of the animals may not be natural and spontaneous. To study spontaneous behavior, long-term studies in the rodents’ home cage are more suitable [1].
Topics: EthoVision XT, mice, Video tracking, home cage, PhenoTyper
Fear is something we all know. It changes our behavior: we freeze, try to escape, or respond with aggression. Fear can also cause anxiety, which is a more complex phenomenon. While fear disappears when the source is absent, anxiety stays when there is no threat anymore. Rodents, for example, avoid the open arms of an Elevated Plus Maze when they previously were subjected to stress [1,2].
Topics: EthoVision XT, Video tracking, insect behavior, exploratory behavior, Track3D, tracking, Automating behavioral observations, Tracking insects, Animal 3D tracking, 3D movement analysis, Mosquito
Topics: The Observer XT, animal behavior research, coding schemes, ethogram, primate, monkey
Bed bugs are on the rebound in developed countries. Traditionally, bed bugs are controlled with pesticides. However, traps with attractive human body odors are a promising alternative. In two interesting studies Harraca et al. investigated the response of bed bugs to human body odors.
Topics: EthoVision XT, Video tracking, animal behavior research, insect behavior
