Grooming behaviors of black-tailed prairie dogs in Phillips County, Montana, 2006

Abstract

Data on factors that affect the grooming behaviors of black-tailed prairie dogs in Phillips County, Montana, 2006. Each line of data presents information for a focal observation of a single black-tailed prairie dog. The data includes information on the date of each observation, the approximate coordinates of sites, the time of each observation, indexed wind speed, indexed temperature, the presence or absence of deltamethrin dust (pulicide) treatment, the amount of time a human spent observing the prairie dog, the proportion of time spent scratching by the prairie dog, the proportion of time spent oral autogrooming by the prairie dog, the proportion of time spent allogrooming by the prairie dog, and the overall proportion of time spent grooming by the prairie dog (scratching, oral autogrooming, and allogrooming combined). The coordinates of sites are linked to colonies of prairie dogs, not locations for individual prairie dogs. The spatial location for each prairie dog within a colony is the centroid point for that colony. Financial support was provided by the Denver Zoological Foundation, the U. S. Geological Survey, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.