Hermit crabs have an intimate relationship with gastropod shells and show numerous activities by which they locate, select, and change shells in different contexts. They gather information about new shells and update information about their...
My recent review examined the complex and intimate relationship between hermit crabs and the empty gastropod shells upon which they depend for survival. Because shells come with costs as well as benefits, the crabs are...
Urban free-roaming cats create concern about their impacts on wildlife and human health, leading to the use of trap–adopt–kill methods to manage these populations. This method is ineffective at decreasing the free-roaming cat population and...
Certain species within the order Anura are relatively new in the context of exotic animals as pets, and the precise conditions required for their optimal care and well-being are still not well understood. This knowledge...
Fear reactions in horses are a major cause of horse–human accidents, and identification of effective pathways for reduction in fearfulness can help decreasing the frequency of accidents. For a young mammal, the mother is one...
Retail dog toys are often provided to companion animals to provide cognitive and physical stimu- lation and improve the animals’ quality of life. These toys, sometimes known as “enrichment toys”, have been shown to play...
The judgement bias test represents one of the most applied tools to evaluate animals’ optimistic/pessimistic attitude and to infer their emotional and welfare state accordingly. The judgement bias test (JBT) has been used several times...
In a new review article, experiments on hermit crab behaviour are discussed in the context of possible animal sentience. Sentience can be defined as the ability to experience feelings such as pleasure or pain but...
Facial expressions potentially serve as indicators of animal emotions if they are consistently present across situations that (likely) elicit the same emotional state. In a previous study, we used the Dog Facial Action Coding System...
Social buffering of stress refers to the effect of a social partner in reducing the cortisol or corticosterone response to a stressor. It has been well studied in mammals, particularly those that form pair bonds...