Learning specificity in acquired predator recognition

Predator recognition is often dependent upon experience, This behavioural p lasticity can potentially be exploited to enhance the antipredator behaviou r of captive-bred animals, but it is first necessary to understand the spec ificity of learning. We enhanced the responses of tammar wallabies, Macropu s eugenii, to a model fox, Vulpes vulpes, by presenting this novel predator in conjunction with a human simulating a capture procedure. A control grou p had identical total exposure to fox and human, but with no such predictiv e relationship between these two events. Animals that experienced paired pr esentations of fox and human behaved more cautiously towards the fox after training than controls. To assess whether this learnt response was specific to the fox, we presented the animals with an array of visual stimuli both before and after training. The tammars generalized their acquired response from the predator with which they were trained to a predator with which the y were not trained (cat, Felis catus), but not to a nonpredator (goat, Capr a hircus). Tammars also exhibited a transient increase in response to a mod el wallaby after training. We suggest that this effect is more likely to re flect social behaviour than generalization of the learnt response from pred ator to conspecific. Two additional controls revealed that changes in behav iour after training were not attributable to the presentation device and we re not caused by a general decrease in response threshold associated with t raining. Our results suggest that tammar wallabies perceive predators as a natural category. (C) 2001 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviou r.