Failure to find aversive marking of toxic foods by Norway rats

A series of five experiments were undertaken to determine whether Norway rats, Rattus norvegicus, that had learned to avoid eating an unfamiliar food (demonstrators) would mark the food (or its surroundings) in a way that reduced the probability that naïve conspecifics would eat the marked food. We found no evidence that demonstrators aversively marked foods that they had learned to avoid. To the contrary, naïve subjects ate more in areas …