Female prairie deer mice prefer conspecific flesh over contraspecific flesh.

Abstract

Hungry adult female deer mice were presented with freshly asphyxiated conspecifics and house mice. The deer mice showed a reliable preference for the conspecific flesh during the first 2 hr of testing, but this preference was attenuated during the following 20 hr of testing. Previous research has shown that male deer mice prefer contraspecific flesh. The preference of female deer mice for conspecific flesh is attributed to their tendency to be more aggressive toward living conspecifics than are male deer mice and their tendency to avoid living contraspecifics more than do male deer mice.