Elsevier

Behavioural Processes

Volume 113, April 2015, Pages 41-50
Behavioural Processes

Food neophobia in wild and laboratory rats (multi-strain comparison)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2014.12.005Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • The results did not confirm the notion that wild rats avoid eating unfamiliar foods.

  • Wild and laboratory rats demonstrated only a temporary decrease in the amount of food consumed.

  • The magnitude of the decrease in food consumption was similar in all strains.

  • No evidence of particularly low neophobia in albino rats was found.

Abstract

Although empirical studies comparing neophobia in wild and laboratory rats have been conducted in the past, a few decades have passed since most of them were completed. This is a substantial period of time in the case of fast-breeding animals such as rats. Equally important are the inconsistencies in research findings with respect to comparisons between wild and laboratory rats, and within domesticated strains. As well as having the aim of updating knowledge of neophobia among different types of rats, the present experiment was also an attempt to isolate a specific fear of a new food from a general fear of a novel object.

The procedure was that rats accustomed to one type of food served in a specific location and in a familiar container were given a different type of food. Test trials were preceded by food deprivation. The following variables were measured: feeding latency, the pace of eating, the number of approaches to the container, and the number of times food was sampled in each trial. The amount of food consumed in each trial was weighed and also taken into account. Grooming time served as the measure of stress among the rats in the experiment.

The results of the experiment did not confirm the assertion of some authors that wild rats avoid eating unfamiliar foods. All groups demonstrated only a temporary decrease in the amount of food consumed, the magnitude of which was similar in all strains. No evidence of particularly low neophobia in albino rats was found. However, the behavioral symptoms indicated higher levels of stress in wild rats compared to the other groups.

Keywords

Wild rat
Laboratory rat
Domestication
Neophobia
Food neophobia
WWCPS
Long Evans
Sprague-Dawley
Brown Norway

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