EARLY OLFACTORY EXPERIENCE, NOVELTY, AND CHOICE OF SEXUAL PARTNER BY MALE-RATS

After rearing by citral-scented or unscented dams, adult male rats wer e given simultaneous choices of citral-scented or unscented female par tners in approach, contact, and sexual behavior tests. There was no ev idence that mate choice had been affected by the early rearing experie nce. In Experiment I, both citral and control males approached citral- scented females in a T-apparatus at slightly above chance levels and e xhibited no differences in copulatory behavior during successive pairi ngs. In Experiment 2, normally reared males directed their first mount more rapidly to a citral female, but otherwise mated equally with the scented and unscented females. In Experiment 3, citral-reared males a pproached citral and unscented females equally, whereas controls appro ached citral females less often. With 2 females in the same arena (Exp . 3), the first mount was more rapid when the odor of the partner matc hed that of the dam, but no other measure of sexual behavior was affec ted by the partner's odor. Despite the importance of early olfactory e xperience for the development of social behavior, a preference for est rous-related odors is evidently not learned before mating experience. Under some circumstances, a novel odor added to familiar conspecific o dors may attract naive males to potential partners. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Inc.