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The orientation of the golden hamster to its nest-site after the elimination of various sensory cues

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Summary

Golden hamsters hoard food by carrying it back to their nest-site along a fairly direct path. 7 out of 12 animals continued to orientate in this way after passive transportation to the food source and the simultaneous elimination of visual, olfactory and acoustical cues. Experiments in which the hamsters tried to reach their nest-box from an unfamiliar place suggest that they orientate in a given direction with respect to a ‘compass’, the nature of which has still to be determined.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d'Ethologie, FPSE, Université II, CH-1211, Genève 4, Switzerland

    Ariane S. Etienne

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  1. Ariane S. Etienne
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Additional information

Acknowledgments. This research is supported by the Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique, grant No. 3.349.74. I am most grateful to Dr E. Batschelet† and Dr P. Mengal for their advice in the statistical treatment of the data, to Dr J. Bovet for a critical reading of the manuscript, to Drs H. Mittelstaedt, E. Kramer and H. Wallraff for discussions, to J. Stryjenski, M. Lançon, O. Wehrli and R. Schumacher for technical advice and help, to Mrs E. Teroni and Dr J. Vauclair for their collaboration and to many students for their help in carrying out the experiments.

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Etienne, A.S. The orientation of the golden hamster to its nest-site after the elimination of various sensory cues. Experientia 36, 1048–1050 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01965961

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