Some Observations on the Self-Stimulation Habits of Young Wild Animals

Sucking Patterns of Infant Mammals

“…Whatever its etiology or diagnostic significance, most observers agree that animals and infants alike show non-nutritive sucking when they are 364 W olff distressed, frightened or frustrated and that non-nutritive sucking at such times has a pacifying effect [Lashley, 1914;R ichter, 1925;Levy, 1934;Gilman, 1941;McKee and H onzik, 1965], Sucking in sleep, for instance, renders the human infant relatively unresponsive to mild noxious stimuli as if the sucking could raise the infant's response threshold to disruptive external stimuli [Wolff and Simmons, 1967], How then should one account for the appearance of a specialized mode of non-nutritive sucking in human infants? The thesis that non-nutritive sucking has survival value for the species, or that its survival value is greater for human than animal infants, is at present untestable.…”

Sucking Patterns of Infant Mammals

“…Whatever its etiology or diagnostic significance, most observers agree that animals and infants alike show non-nutritive sucking when they are 364 W olff distressed, frightened or frustrated and that non-nutritive sucking at such times has a pacifying effect [Lashley, 1914;R ichter, 1925;Levy, 1934;Gilman, 1941;McKee and H onzik, 1965], Sucking in sleep, for instance, renders the human infant relatively unresponsive to mild noxious stimuli as if the sucking could raise the infant's response threshold to disruptive external stimuli [Wolff and Simmons, 1967], How then should one account for the appearance of a specialized mode of non-nutritive sucking in human infants? The thesis that non-nutritive sucking has survival value for the species, or that its survival value is greater for human than animal infants, is at present untestable.…”

Stereotypic behavior in Asiatic black and Malayan sun bears

“…Behaviors were classified as 1) normal, 2) stereotypic (e.g., pacing or weaving), 3) compulsive (defined as nonrepetitive, apparently functionless behaviors that are self-directed and/or bizarre, e.g., self-biting and hair-plucking), and 4) repetitive selfsucking (sometimes accompanied by a ''humming'' vocalization). In the present study this latter behavior was considered a ''deprivation stereotypy'' [e.g., Ridley and Baker, 1982] on the basis that in bears it apparently is exclusive to very earlyweaned individuals [van Keulen Kromhout, 1976;Hawes, 1997] (Molloy, unpublished results; Maas, unpublished results), it resembles normal suckling by bear cubs [Davids, 1982], and it is similar to behaviors seen in isolation-reared primates and other early-weaned mammals [Richter, 1925;Cross and Harlow, 1965;de Passille and Rushen, 1997]. See Table 2 for a full ethogram of behaviors.…”

Ontogeny of embryonic behavior in aves. IV. The influence of embryonic movements upon the behavior after hatching.

“…While Erasmus Darwin did not give convincing evidence to verify his opinion, Preyer (28) actually found that the stomach of fetal rabbits contained liquor amnii with curds of coagulated protein. Richter (29) after citing the observations of Preyer, Schotti, Soltmann and Schells, as well as his own observation, which all demonstrate the presence of sucking activity in rabbit, guinea pig and human fetuses, concludes that the sucking habits are acquired in the uterus. I also have made several incidental observations of sucking movements in fetal kittens.…”

“…Richter (29) after citing the observations of Preyer, Schotti, Soltmann and Schells, as well as his own observation, which all demonstrate the presence of sucking activity in rabbit, guinea pig and human fetuses, concludes that the sucking habits are acquired in the uterus. I also have made several incidental observations of sucking movements in fetal kittens.…”

Sucking Patterns of Infant Mammals

“…Whatever its etiology or diagnostic significance, most observers agree that animals and infants alike show non-nutritive sucking when they are 364 W olff distressed, frightened or frustrated and that non-nutritive sucking at such times has a pacifying effect [Lashley, 1914;R ichter, 1925;Levy, 1934;Gilman, 1941;McKee and H onzik, 1965], Sucking in sleep, for instance, renders the human infant relatively unresponsive to mild noxious stimuli as if the sucking could raise the infant's response threshold to disruptive external stimuli [Wolff and Simmons, 1967], How then should one account for the appearance of a specialized mode of non-nutritive sucking in human infants? The thesis that non-nutritive sucking has survival value for the species, or that its survival value is greater for human than animal infants, is at present untestable.…”

Stereotypic behavior in Asiatic black and Malayan sun bears

“…Behaviors were classified as 1) normal, 2) stereotypic (e.g., pacing or weaving), 3) compulsive (defined as nonrepetitive, apparently functionless behaviors that are self-directed and/or bizarre, e.g., self-biting and hair-plucking), and 4) repetitive selfsucking (sometimes accompanied by a ''humming'' vocalization). In the present study this latter behavior was considered a ''deprivation stereotypy'' [e.g., Ridley and Baker, 1982] on the basis that in bears it apparently is exclusive to very earlyweaned individuals [van Keulen Kromhout, 1976;Hawes, 1997] (Molloy, unpublished results; Maas, unpublished results), it resembles normal suckling by bear cubs [Davids, 1982], and it is similar to behaviors seen in isolation-reared primates and other early-weaned mammals [Richter, 1925;Cross and Harlow, 1965;de Passille and Rushen, 1997]. See Table 2 for a full ethogram of behaviors.…”

Ontogeny of embryonic behavior in aves. IV. The influence of embryonic movements upon the behavior after hatching.

“…While Erasmus Darwin did not give convincing evidence to verify his opinion, Preyer (28) actually found that the stomach of fetal rabbits contained liquor amnii with curds of coagulated protein. Richter (29) after citing the observations of Preyer, Schotti, Soltmann and Schells, as well as his own observation, which all demonstrate the presence of sucking activity in rabbit, guinea pig and human fetuses, concludes that the sucking habits are acquired in the uterus. I also have made several incidental observations of sucking movements in fetal kittens.…”

“…Richter (29) after citing the observations of Preyer, Schotti, Soltmann and Schells, as well as his own observation, which all demonstrate the presence of sucking activity in rabbit, guinea pig and human fetuses, concludes that the sucking habits are acquired in the uterus. I also have made several incidental observations of sucking movements in fetal kittens.…”

Sucking Patterns of Infant Mammals

“…Whatever its etiology or diagnostic significance, most observers agree that animals and infants alike show non-nutritive sucking when they are 364 W olff distressed, frightened or frustrated and that non-nutritive sucking at such times has a pacifying effect [Lashley, 1914;R ichter, 1925;Levy, 1934;Gilman, 1941;McKee and H onzik, 1965], Sucking in sleep, for instance, renders the human infant relatively unresponsive to mild noxious stimuli as if the sucking could raise the infant's response threshold to disruptive external stimuli [Wolff and Simmons, 1967], How then should one account for the appearance of a specialized mode of non-nutritive sucking in human infants? The thesis that non-nutritive sucking has survival value for the species, or that its survival value is greater for human than animal infants, is at present untestable.…”

Stereotypic behavior in Asiatic black and Malayan sun bears

“…Behaviors were classified as 1) normal, 2) stereotypic (e.g., pacing or weaving), 3) compulsive (defined as nonrepetitive, apparently functionless behaviors that are self-directed and/or bizarre, e.g., self-biting and hair-plucking), and 4) repetitive selfsucking (sometimes accompanied by a ''humming'' vocalization). In the present study this latter behavior was considered a ''deprivation stereotypy'' [e.g., Ridley and Baker, 1982] on the basis that in bears it apparently is exclusive to very earlyweaned individuals [van Keulen Kromhout, 1976;Hawes, 1997] (Molloy, unpublished results; Maas, unpublished results), it resembles normal suckling by bear cubs [Davids, 1982], and it is similar to behaviors seen in isolation-reared primates and other early-weaned mammals [Richter, 1925;Cross and Harlow, 1965;de Passille and Rushen, 1997]. See Table 2 for a full ethogram of behaviors.…”

Ontogeny of embryonic behavior in aves. IV. The influence of embryonic movements upon the behavior after hatching.

“…While Erasmus Darwin did not give convincing evidence to verify his opinion, Preyer (28) actually found that the stomach of fetal rabbits contained liquor amnii with curds of coagulated protein. Richter (29) after citing the observations of Preyer, Schotti, Soltmann and Schells, as well as his own observation, which all demonstrate the presence of sucking activity in rabbit, guinea pig and human fetuses, concludes that the sucking habits are acquired in the uterus. I also have made several incidental observations of sucking movements in fetal kittens.…”

“…Richter (29) after citing the observations of Preyer, Schotti, Soltmann and Schells, as well as his own observation, which all demonstrate the presence of sucking activity in rabbit, guinea pig and human fetuses, concludes that the sucking habits are acquired in the uterus. I also have made several incidental observations of sucking movements in fetal kittens.…”