A Primer of Olfactory Communications about Distant Foods in Norway Rats

During a brief period of social interaction, a naive Norway rat (an observer) can extract information from a recently fed conspecific (a demonstrator) sufficient to allow the observer to identify the diet that its demonstrator ate. In our standard procedure (Galef and Wigmore, 1983), each observer rat first interacted for 15 min with a demonstrator rat that had eaten either cinnamon- or cocoa-flavored diet (Diet Cin or Diet Coc). The observer was then isolated and offered a choice between Diets Cin and Coc for 22 hr. In such experiments, observer rats exhibit enhanced preferences for whatever diet their respective demonstrator ate (Galef et al., 1984).