Ontogeny of individuality in the domestic cat in the home environment

The behaviour of house cats Felis silvestris catus from nine litters was re corded at 4 months, 1 year and 2 years of age, in their home environment im mediately after meals fed by their owners. We extracted by principal compon ents analysis four elements of 'behavioural style' that were consistent fro m one age to another: based upon behaviour patterns that were most heavily loaded on each component, these were labelled as Staying Indoors, Rubbing, Investigative and Boldness elements. The Staying Indoors and Rubbing elemen ts are similar to two aspects of behavioural style identified in a previous study of adult cats; the Boldness element, possibly coupled with the Inves tigative element, may be similar to the shy/bold continuum identified in co ntrolled studies of cats and other species. Four-month-old male cats were t he most likely;to Stay Indoors; the Rubbing element increased with age in t he majority of individuals, both male and female. Littermates tended to be similar to one another in Rubbing (at 4 months) and Boldness (up to 1 year) . A positive effect of handling received during the first 8 weeks of life w as detected for Boldness at 4 months of age. (C) 2001 The Association for t he Study of Animal Behaviour.