Research On The Behavior Of The Captive Blue-crowned Laughingthrush Garralux Courtoisi

The Blue-crowned Laughingthrush Garrulax courtoisi,a group-living species,is listed as Critically Endangered(CR)by IUCN,with a total known population size of around 240 mature individuals.It is confined to an extremely small breeding range in Jiangxi Province,China.Off-site preservation is an effective methods in the conservation and recovery of endangered species in biodiversity conservation.The laughingthursh only breeds in Nanchang Zoo in China.We analyzed the behavior pattern and food choice of this bird,to clear its behavioral rhythm and the time budget pattern,the results will provide basic data for the study of behavior expression and health evaluation in captivity.The understand of food choice bias will provide important information for the improvement of feeding condition.All the results combined will useful for the protection and off-site preservation population management for the flagship species of Jiangxi Province,as well as the related study on the wild population.In order to research the activity rhythm of Blue-crowned Laughingthrush in different period,we used the instantaneous scan method to study the time budget and activity rhythm of eight captive Blue-crowned Laughingthrush that breeds in Nanchang Zoo from January to December in 2015.The result show that feeding,flying,preening,nesting,social behavior,sitting,incubating,feeding chicks,resting and mating constituted the main part of its behavior in a year;among which the highest percentage of behavioral frequency was feeding in each month(average 36.37%),followed by flying(24.54%)and preening(16.73%).One-way ANOVA was used to analyze the differences between behaviors'frequency in different breeding stages,the result indicated that all behaviors except mating were significantly different in breeding period(p<0.001).In general,daily rhythms of each behavior in different time slots were not obvious in breeding period of the laughingthrush.In diurnal time of breeding period,the frequency of flying was highest in 18:00-19:00,among 9:00-13:00 and 16:00-16:55 was higher than other time slots,and low among 13:00-13:55 and 17:00-17:55;the frequency of feeding was relatively fixed in all the time plot of a day in each month,however there are two feeding peak among 11:00-11:55 and 13:00-13:55.The birds spent their time mainly in feeding,flying,feeding chick and incubating at frequency of 27.3%,23.95%,20.69%and 14.17%respectively in breeding period.In general,the behavior rhythm,time allocation of the laughinghthrush reflected the different needing in different season or breeding stages.The results could provide reasonable guide of artificial rearing,wild population conservation for Blue-crowned Laughingthrush.In order to understand the food choice of captive Blue-crowned Laughingthrush,we studied the feeding habits of eight captive Blue-crowned Laughingthrushs at Nanchang Zoo from January to December,2015.We feed the laughingthrush with six types of food(fruit,pellet,cooked egg,bread bug,barley pest and cornbug),weighed the food eaten by the laughingthrush everyday.The result indicated that the main food was animal food in the whole year,its average weight is 1987.7g/month and vegetarian food was 1503.2g/month.In animal foods,bread bugs was the maximum eaten foods,whose weight was 1232.7±65.8g/month,followed by egg,504.1±45.6g/month.In vegetarian foods,pellet was the maximum eaten food,whose weight is 923.9±154.8g/month,followed by fruit,579.4±141.2g/month.The feeding habits of Blue-crowned Laughingthrush were different in different periods,the main food were animal foods from January to September,however,the laughinghthrush chose vegetarian food more from November to December,animal foods were eaten as much as vegetarian foods in October.The main food was bread bugs for captive Blue-crowned Laughingthrush from January to April,followed by pellet;and the main food was bread bugs followed by fruits from May to September;the main food was pellet followed by bread bugs from October to December.In brooding period(from July to September for the laughingthrush in 2015),the monthly total food weight was higher than the other months,except September was lower than October.In conclusion,the food choice and food amount were different in years and breeding stages according the different demands on energy of the laughingthrush.