Max Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "mate"

An image of a Pallas's cat from a camera trap during a study in Mongolia













These days I spend a lot more time writing research articles for peer-reviewed journals than writing books about wildlife and photography. In our recent research article, we assessed the scent-marking behavior of Pallas' cats. The full article is available as a pdf (free) from my website:
https://publish.illinois.edu/maxallen...

Pallas's cats (also called manul) are an understudied species, that is difficult to observe and study. There is little published research on their ecology and behaviour, especially their scent-marking behavior. In fact, their scent-marking behaviour has only been documented in the wild in one previous study.

Scent marking is used by many solitary carnivores, including Pallas's cats, to communicate with other individuals. For many species, this is the most frequent way of contacting each other, and is used to delineate territories and communicate with potential mates and competitors.

We studied their scent marking (also called "olfactory communication") and visitation at scent-marking sites using camera traps in two study areas in Mongolia. We documented four types of olfactory communication behaviours, with olfaction (sniffing) the most frequent. We also documented urine spraying, head/body rubbing, and the flehmen response.

What was particularly interesting was that Pallas’s cats used olfactory communication most frequently at sites that were not visited by snow leopards, and when they used communal scent-marking sites, they were more likely to use olfactory communication when a longer time had elapsed since the last visit by a snow leopard. This suggests that Pallas’s cats may reduce advertising their presence in response to the occurrence of snow leopards, possibly to limit predation risk.