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Article
Face to face: human recognition of Asian elephant facial features
Especially in species with complex social systems, the relatedness between individuals is important information. Visual phenotypic cues present one way to identify closely related conspecifics. Humans are capa...
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Cornelia-Uitzoek, South Africa
Cornelia-Uitzoek (27.160° S, 28.878° E) is an Early Pleistocene fossil locality with Acheulean and Middle Stone Age (MSA) artifacts in the Schoonspruit Valley, a tributary of the Vaal River, in the northeaster...
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Article
Open AccessPreliminary evidence for a forestomach washing mechanism in llamas (Lama glama)
Dust and grit are ingested by herbivores in their natural habitats along with the plants that represent their selected diet. Among the functions of the rumen, a washing of ingesta from adhering dust and grit h...
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Article
Open AccessBasic considerations on seasonal breeding in mammals including their testing by comparing natural habitats and zoos
Seasonal reproduction is common in mammals. Whereas specific conditions triggering a seasonal response can only be identified in controlled experiments, large-scale comparisons of reproduction in natural habit...
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Article
The rumen washes off abrasives before heavy-duty chewing in ruminants
Based on comparative mandibular anatomy, observations of chewing behaviour, chewing forces and dental microwear, it has been suggested that an additional effect of the ruminant digestive strategy could be a re...
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Article
Elephant body mass cyclicity suggests effect of molar progression on chewing efficiency
Elephants do not replace deciduous teeth once with permanent teeth as most mammals, but replace a single cheek tooth per jaw-side five times in their lives in a process called molar progression. While this gra...
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Morphological and Physiological Adaptations for Browsing and Grazing
Woody plants and grasses are two functionally distinct food groups that pose different mechanical, nutritional, and ecological challenges to herbivores. Accordingly, herbivores have evolved an array of morphol...
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Article
Isotopic niche structure of a mammalian herbivore assemblage from a West African savanna: Body mass and seasonality effect
Understanding the mechanisms of species coexistence within local assemblages can play a crucial role in conservation of a species. There is little understanding of how large mammalian bovid species from West A...
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Article
Open AccessBreeding Young as a Survival Strategy during Earth’s Greatest Mass Extinction
Studies of the effects of mass extinctions on ancient ecosystems have focused on changes in taxic diversity, morphological disparity, abundance, behaviour and resource availability as key determinants of group...
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Article
Body condition and ruminal morphology responses of free-ranging impala (Aepyceros melampus) to changes in diet
Variation of the intraruminal papillation pattern with diet quality has been described in many ruminant species, but the use of papillation measures as a proxy for habitat quality and nutritional status of ani...
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Article
Low scaling of a life history variable: Analysing eutherian gestation periods with and without phylogeny-informed statistics
Traditionally, biological times (gestation period, longevity) are proposed to scale to body mass M as M0.25. Although phylogeny-informed statistics have become widespread, it is still sometimes assumed that in da...
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Article
Forestomach pH in hunted roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in relation to forestomach region, time of measurement and supplemental feeding and comparison among wild ruminant species
There is a debate whether supplemental feeding of deer bears the risk of inducing health problems, in particular acidosis. Here, the pH values of forestomach contents of free-ranging roe deer (Capreolus capreolus
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Article
Rumination of different-sized particles in muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) and moose (Alces alces) on grass and browse diets, and implications for rumination in different ruminant feeding types
The obligatory, periodic regurgitation of forestomach material and its subsequent re-mastication is the hallmark of the most diverse extant large herbivore group, the ruminants. Although the process of ruminat...
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Article
The confounding effects of source isotopic heterogeneity on consumer–diet and tissue–tissue stable isotope relationships
Stable isotope analysis of consumer tissues document patterns of resource use because data are linearly related to isotope compositions of their source(s) (i.e., food, water, etc.). Deviations in parameters es...
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Article
Tracking the fate of digesta 13C and 15N compositions along the ruminant gastrointestinal tract: Does digestion influence the relationship between diet and faeces?
Faecal stable isotope compositions reflect wildlife diets, if digestive processes along the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) do not alter diet–faeces isotopic relationships in an unpredictable way. We investigated 13
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Article
Fecal Glucocorticoid Measurements and Their Relation to Rearing, Behavior, and Environmental Factors in the Population of Pileated Gibbons (Hylobates pileatus) Held in European Zoos
Pileated gibbons (Hylobates pileatus) are rated as endangered according to the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. The captive population suffers from poor breeding success and is threa...
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Article
Erratum: Strontium isotope evidence for landscape use by early hominins
Nature 474, 76–78 (2011) In Fig. 2 of this Letter, the square symbol for specimen Sts 72 is black (indicating that it represents a large tooth), but it should be white to indicate a small tooth. Supplementary ...
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Article
Strontium isotope evidence for landscape use by early hominins
How do you estimate the home ranges and land-use habits of extinct species? One method is to measure the strontium isotope content of fossil teeth, because strontium isotope ratios are a good indicator of the ...
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Article
Fluid and particle passage in three duiker species
Ruminants are characterised by two different types of reticulorumen (RR) physiology. ‘Cattle-type’ ruminants have, amongst other features such as RR contents stratification and a heterogenous intraruminal papi...
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Article
Landscape-scale feeding patterns of African elephant inferred from carbon isotope analysis of feces
The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) is a large-bodied, generalist herbivore that eats both browse and grass. The proportions of browse and grass consumed are largely expected to reflect the relative availab...
