The control and function of maternal scent marking in the Mongolian gerbil

Age-Related Changes on Marking, Marking-like Behavior and the Scent Gland in Adult Mongolian Gerbils(Meriones unguiculatus).

“…Scent marking by male gerbils appears to be related to territorial maintenance and acquisition, whereas female scent marking may contribute to nest defense and care of the young. Lactating females scent their pups and use these odors during retrieval [22,24]. Our previous study [3] indicated that marking-like behavior after 45 days old, when the animals had developed their scent glands, played a role of marking.…”

“…Turner [20] also reported that sexual domorphism in territorial marking behavior is due to a sex difference in the competency to respond to androgen and that development of this competency occurs during the neonatal period and is regulated, at least in part by androgen. It has been reported that sex hormones regulate marking behavior in adult gerbils [5,9,12,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Compared with the reproductive ability of gerbils it is possible that the function works until 22-24 months in males [1,13] and 20-27 months of age in females [1,6,13].…”

“…Lately, we have reported that marking behavior is innate and is not learned behavior in Mongolian gerbils [4]. In adult Mongolian gerbils, marking behavior is defined as gerbils rubbing their abdominal scent glands onto a prominent object [5,17,18,22,23], and both the object and floor [11,16,20]. In addition, Thiessen et al [16] and some researchers [12,15,[17][18][19][20]22] reported that the open field used for observation had 9 pegs in its 1 m 2 floor, while the authors used an 0.34 m 2 open field with 2 pegs.…”

Marking Behavior is Innate and not Learned in the Mongolian Gerbil.

“…Marking behavior in mature Mongolian gerbils is known as behavior in which the animals rub some secretion from their abdominal scent gland onto objects [5,[11][12][13][14][15][16]. It is also reported that this behavior begins to be seen at the age of 76 days in males [8], is more pronounced in males than in females [12,14], and depends on testosterone [5,8,[11][12][13][14] or estrogen levels [15,16].…”

“…It is also reported that this behavior begins to be seen at the age of 76 days in males [8], is more pronounced in males than in females [12,14], and depends on testosterone [5,8,[11][12][13][14] or estrogen levels [15,16]. In the present study, we had ICR mother mice at 3 days after delivery nurse newborn Mongolian gerbils so that it might be obvious whether marking behavior in Mongolian gerbils is learned or innate, and we checked to see if this behavior occurred or not.…”