No abstract

We allowed seven willow tits, Parus montanus, to store and retrieve with retention intervals of 1, 7, 21 and 56 days, in four experimental rooms. Retrieval success decreased over time, indicating a decaying memory for cache locations. Compared to what could be expected by chance, retrieval success was better after all retention intervals. Our results suggest that - after the longer retention intervals - this might depend on preferences for certain types of caching locations rather than memory. If both general and individual preferences are controlled for, birds retrieved significantly better than expected one and seven days after storing, but not later than that.

We studied feeding behaviour by twig browsing goats in relation to two types of spines 35 of Acacia tortilis using experimental manipulation of the occurrence of spines.