Vocalization And Vocal Development Researches Of Captive Amur Tiger(Panthera Tigris Altaica)Cubs

The Amur tiger is the largest cat in the world.The cubs of Amur tiger need long-term care from their mothers after birth.Therefore,the vocalizations of the tiger cubs play an important role in contact with their mother.This study quantitatively analyzed the vocal repertoire and using context of captive Amur tiger cubs,and explored whether there are differences of the calls in different body weights,age,sex and rearing patterns.The main results are as follows:(1)A total of 5,335 high-quality calls were collected from 65 tiger cubs in this study,and a total of 9 call types were identified,including Ar-1,Ar-2,Er,eee,Chuff,Growl,Hiss,Haer and,Roar.Ar-2,eee and Roar are mainly used for refusing to play;Ar-1 is mainly used for isolating context;Haer,Growl and,Hiss are mainly used for attacking context;Chuff is mainly used for friendly context.(2)With the development of body weight,the Duration and RiseTime of the isolated call increased,while the frequency parameters(FO,MaxFO,MinFO,MaxFreq,Freq25,Freq50 and,Freq75)decreased.With the development of age,the Duration of the isolated call increased,while some fundamental frequency parameters and energy parameters(FO,SDFO,MaxFO,MaxFreq,Freq25,Freq50,Freq75 and IQRBW)decreased.In addition,there was no significant difference between different sex in isolation calls.However,with the change of age,the fundamental frequency of isolated calls was higher in maternal-reared tiger cubs than hand-reared tiger cubs.The isolated call of tiger cubs contains individual specificity.(3)The using rate and acoustic parameters of various calls were different between maternal-reared tiger cubs and hand-reared tiger cubs in different using contexts.To sum up,in this study,we quantificationally analyzed and descripted the calls of Amur tiger cubs.We found that the acoustic parameters of Amur tiger cubs' isolation call contain ontogenetic and individual information.We also found that the using rate of call types in various contexts was significantly different between maternal-reared tiger cubs and hand-reared tiger cubs,and discussed the reasons of it from four possible aspects(body weight,personality,emotion,and social feedback).This result provides the basis for the study of vocal communication and maternal-offspring interaction of Amur tiger and also provides a scientific basis for the protection and management of the Amur tiger breeding population.