PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Rafal Stryjek
AU  - Michael H. Parsons
AU  - Piotr Bebas
TI  - First record of ‘tail-belting’ in two species of free-ranging rodents (<em>Apodemus flavicollis and Apodemus agrarius</em>): Adaptation to prevent frostbite?
AID  - 10.1101/2021.04.12.439224
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.04.12.439224
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/13/2021.04.12.439224.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/13/2021.04.12.439224.full
AB  - Rodents are among the most successful mammals because they have the ability to adapt to a broad range of environmental conditions. Here, we present the first record of a hitherto unknown thermal adaptation to low temperatures that repeatedly occurred in two species of non-commensal rodents (Apodemus flavicollis and Apodemus agrarius) between January 16 and February 11, 2021. The classic rodent literature implies that rodents prevent heat loss via a broad range of behavioral adaptations including sheltering, sitting on their tails, curling into a ball, or huddling with conspecifics. Yet, we have repeatedly observed an undescribed behavior which we refer to as “tail-belting”. The behavior was performed during the lowest temperatures, whereby animals - which were attracted out of their over-wintering burrows for a highly-palatable food reward - lift and curl the tail medially, before resting it on the dorsal, medial rump while feeding or resting between feeding bouts. We documented 115 instances of the tail-belting behavior; 38 in Apodemus agrarius, and 77 in Apodemus flavicollis. In A. flavicollis, this behavior was only observed below −6.9C, and occurred more often than in A. Agrarius. The latter only demonstrated the behavior below −9.5C. We further detail the environmental conditions under which the behavior is performed, and provide possible functions. We then set several directions for future research in this area.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.