Oro-manual assessment of food preservability in a wild rodent
- 1University of Pennsylvania
Abstract
Animals encounter a variety of food items and must determine their future value and preservability. Because animals in laboratory settings are typically provided with uniform food items, there is a dearth of knowledge on how animals assess natural complex food. Here, we dissect how wild agoutis-a critical seed disperser of the Neotropics-decide whether to consume or bury food in small caches, i.e. scatter-hoarding. We find that agoutis preferentially cache nuts over fresh fruits and, when foraging, undergo a sharp transition from eating to scatter-hoarding. Remarkably, agoutis scatter-hoarded empty nuts with intact shells but not filled nuts with broken shells. This decision was dependent on an oro-manual food assessment, an ecological information-seeking behavior. They used their lips and incisors - a somatosensory fovea - to navigate the surface of the nut optimally accumulating decision-critical sensory information. Together, these findings provide a mechanistic account of preservability assessment in a wild rodent, revealing how information-seeking behaviors support long-term value optimization in natural environments.
Related
- Origins of adaptive genomic variation in a wild rodent
- Interspecific social contacts spread gut microbiota in wild rodent communities
- Social relationships promote access to food and information in wild jackdaws.
- Nutritional diversity and bioactive potential of thirteen wild edible insects in India: implications for sustainable food and nutrition security.
- Spatial covariation assessment between wild boars and other mammals in peri-urban landscapes: insights for management from southern France
BibTeX
@misc{dumargne2026oromanual,
title = {{Oro-manual assessment of food preservability in a wild rodent}},
author = {L. Dumargne and M. Williams and E. Tibi and J. I. Sanguinetti-Scheck and D. Galvez and C. Testard},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.23.752726},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.752726v1},
note = {CC BY-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Oro-manual assessment of food preservability in a wild rodent
AU - L. Dumargne
AU - M. Williams
AU - E. Tibi
AU - J. I. Sanguinetti-Scheck
AU - D. Galvez
AU - C. Testard
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.23.752726
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.752726v1
AB - Animals encounter a variety of food items and must determine their future value and preservability. Because animals in laboratory settings are typically provided with uniform food items, there is a dearth of knowledge on how animals assess natural complex food. Here, we dissect how wild agoutis-a critical seed disperser of the Neotropics-decide whether to consume or bury food in small caches, i.e. scatter-hoarding. We find that agoutis preferentially cache nuts over fresh fruits and, when foraging, undergo a sharp transition from eating to scatter-hoarding. Remarkably, agoutis scatter-hoarded empty nuts with intact shells but not filled nuts with broken shells. This decision was dependent on an oro-manual food assessment, an ecological information-seeking behavior. They used their lips and incisors - a somatosensory fovea - to navigate the surface of the nut optimally accumulating decision-critical sensory information. Together, these findings provide a mechanistic account of preservability assessment in a wild rodent, revealing how information-seeking behaviors support long-term value optimization in natural environments.
ER -