Visual and auditory cues facilitate cache pilferage of Siberian chipmunks(Tamias sibiricus)under indoor conditions

In the struggle for survival,scatter-hoarding rodents are known to cache food and pilfer the caches of others.The extent to which rodents utilize auditory/visual cues from conspecifics to improve cache-pilfering is un­known.Here,Siberian chipmunks(Tamias sibiricus)were allowed to search for caches of Corylus heterophyl­la seeds(man-made caches and animal-made caches)after experiencing cues from a conspecific’s cache-search­ing events.For each type of cache,3 experimental scenarios were presented:(1)alone(control);(2)auditory/visual(hearing and seeing conspecific’s cache-searching events);and(3)auditory only(hearing conspecific’s cache-searching events only)with random orders.The subjects located man-made caches faster,harvested more caches,and hoarded more seeds both in the auditory/visual and the auditory only treatments compared to the control,while scatter-hoarding more seeds in the auditory/visual treatment but larder-hoarding more seeds in the auditory only treatment.Compared to the control,the animals spent less time locating animal-made caches,har­vested more caches,ate fewer seeds,larder-hoarded more seeds and hoarded more seeds in total both in the au­ditory/visual and the auditory only treatments,while eating more seeds and hoarded fewer seeds in total in the auditory only treatment than in the auditory/visual treatment.The results also show that females spent less time locating the animal-made caches,but they scatter-hoarded fewer seeds than males in the auditory/visual treat­ment.To the best of our knowledge,this is the first report that visual and/or auditory cues of conspecifics im­prove cache-pilfering and hoarding in rodents.