Meeting Abstract
Aposematic coloration makes prey defenses easier for predators to learn, recognize, and remember and reduces mistaken attacks. While we know a great deal about predator learning and the evolution of aposematism in avian predators on aposematic invertebrates, mammalian predators and aposematic mammalian prey have been mostly ignored. Coyotes (Canis latrans), ubiquitous mammalian predators, overlap in range with and are potential predators of striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis), an aposematic prey animal found widely across North America. To determine how contrast intensity and pattern structure influence the speed of avoidance learning in canid predators we are initially conditioning captive coyotes to attack brown benign, baited prey models and subsequently presenting them with noxious spraying prey models that vary in pattern structure and contrast intensity. Differences in the latency to attack or interact with the novel spraying models is compared with respect to the contrast intensity and pattern structure of the model. Past research shows that coyotes can easily learn to avoid attacking black-and-white prey models and can generalize this avoidance to models with greater amounts of white (high contrast) but not to models with greater amounts of black (low or no contrast). Preliminary findings suggest that coyote subjects demonstrate greater latency to attack all black-and-white (maximum contrast) models, regardless of pattern structure, compared to the black-and-gray (minimal contrast) model. If supported by further data, these early results may explain the consistent use of black and white coloration, but large variation in pattern structure, exhibited by skunks in the continental United States.
