This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Lion manure

I believe Dave asked (but it might have been Samantha Lane; lots of >> signs
involved),
>> But how do dogs know that lion pooh belongs to a big scary thing that's
>> eat you without ever having seen or smelled a lion?   Is there a chemical
code >>in the poo that says this is the calling card of a huge carnivore?

No sign for hugeitude, but carnivore urine is definitely recognizable by
scent from that of herbivores and packs, naturally, a much scarier punch for
the mammals on the "eat-me" end of the food chain.

My employer, USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, has done
some interesting research with coyote urine as a repellent for pocket
gophers and other small rodents.  The urine is much more repellent if the
coyotes have been eating a meaty diet than if they've been fed cantaloupe
(!) before the urine was collected.

The cited example of dogs being frightened away by a big cat's urine does,
however, entail the interesting question, "Why should a dog be afraid of a
cat's urine if it can't tell how big the cat is by the smell?"  Perhaps the
sheer quantity of lion urine applied to the perimeter of a garden would
convey "really really big cat" to the dogs and common sense takes over from
there.

--Janet
.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Janet Wintermute             jwintermute@ids2.idsonline.com

***************************************************************************
To unsubscribe, send to: listserv@umslvma.umsl.edu
the body message: unsubscribe sqft
See http://www.umsl.edu/~silvest/garden/sqft.html for archive, FAQ and more.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index