- Title
- Eat your heart out: choice and handling of novel toxic prey by predatory water rats
- Creator
- Parrott, Marissa L.; Doody, J. Sean; McHenry, Colin; Clulow, Simon
- Relation
- Australian Mammalogy Vol. 42, Issue 2, p. 235-239
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/AM19016
- Publisher
- CSIRO Publishing
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- We investigated predator-prey interactions between cane toads (Rhinella marina) and native water rats (Hydromys chrysogaster), where toads are novel prey. We show that wild water rats preferentially targeted larger toads, and consumed specific non-toxic organs only. Rats either rapidly learned these behaviours, or adapted them from hunting native frogs.
- Subject
- ancestral behavioural repertoire; heart; invasion; lethal toxic ingestion; liver; muscle; organ targeting; rapid learning; SDG 15; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1436225
- Identifier
- uon:39954
- Identifier
- ISSN:0310-0049
- Language
- eng
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Goal 15: Life on land
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