Communications from the Mammal Society, which have been published twice yearly, in June (see pp. 209–244, this issue) and December, will cease from the end of this year. From January 1999, this Section of the Journal of Zoology will be allocated to Short Communications, and contributions will be welcomed on all taxa within the general field of zoological research, both invertebrate and vertebrate. Three copies of each paper, following the Instructions for Contributors printed at the back of the Journal of Zoology, should be sent directly to Dr M. L. Gorman, Editor of Short Communications, Journal of Zoology, Department of Zoology, Aberdeen University, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen AB24 2TZ, Scotland, U.K. Tel.: +44 (0)1224 272850; fax: +44 (0)1224 272396; e-mail: m.gorman@abdn.ac.uk.

The behaviour of this rainforest dragonfly was studied in the Kakamega Forest, West Kenya. Seven different activities were distinguished: perching, sun-flights, patrolling, inspection, interspecific, intraspecific, and sexual flights. Two-act sequences of these behaviours were analysed and quantified to determine significant transition probabilities. Sun-flights into the tree canopies were the most common flight activity and followed any other behaviour significantly more often than expected. Coming back from a sun-flight, the males preferentially perched or patrolled; after patrolling males typically perched. Most of the time the males spent perching in their territory (32% of total time in territory). Proposed functions of these territorial behavioural activities in Notiothemis robertsi are deduced from these results.

It is proposed that many of the morphological, physiological and behavioural traits that characterize domestic sheep and goats and distinguish them from their wild ancestors (e.g. diminished sexual dimorphism; diminution in brain, body and horn size and changes in shape of the horns; changes in pelage coloration) were shaped, to a large extent, by unconscious selection. It is argued that once founder herds had been assembled and controlled by humans, the very transfer of these animals from their wild environments into the widely different human-made husbandry system caused automatically drastic changes in selection pressures. Several adaptations, vital for survival in the wild, lost their fitness under the new conditions and broke down. New traits (which characterize domestic caprines) were promptly and unconsciously selected for. Protection from predators, culling of young males, protection from the elements, and changes in land use and in food and water supplies are considered the main ecological factors introduced by humans at the start of caprine domestication.

We evaluate the shifts in the selection pressures brought about by each of these changes, and sketch their expected impact on the morphology, physiology and behaviour of the human-controlled herds. We also indicate which of the domestication traits (expected to be automatically selected for under the new set of conditions) are detectable in animal remains recovered from archaeological excavations.

The growth and the food requirements of the European barn owl (Tyto alba) were studied in three groups of captive chicks. One group of chicks, raised in ad libitum food conditions by their parents, was used to measure body mass and linear growth of a number of structural body components at their characteristic growth rate. A second group of chicks, hand-raised with food ad libitum until fledging, was used to measure food requirement at the characteristic growth rate. A third group, hand-raised with restricted feeding, was used to specify the plasticity of growth and food requirements still compatible with a normal development at fledging. Chicks of both sexes of the first two groups experienced an overshoot in body mass (maximum of 391 g) when approximately 40 days old, followed by a decrease (to a mass of 314 g) until fledging at 60 days old, giving a mass distribution with age in the form of a bell-shaped curve. The daily food intake also showed a bell-shaped curve with a peak value of 80 ± 10 g of fresh mice/day when the body mass was maximum. The decrease of food intake preceding fledging was spontaneous. The average daily food intake was 67 ± 17 g/day between the ages of 20 and 60 days. In the restricted feeding group, however, the same timing for linear growth and fledging was achieved with a 17% reduction of daily food intake. For the same fledging body mass as the ad libitum fed group, there was a flattening of the body mass curve. The significance of the overshoot in body mass and food intake is discussed in terms of the chick's and brood's advantages and in terms of parental investment in this species with hatching asynchrony.

The cave-dwelling Congeria kusceri is described and aspects of its unique ancestry and biology elucidated in the context of its, for a bivalve, similarly unique habitat. The species lives in subterranean waters of the Dinaric karst of the former Yugoslavia. C. kusceri is acutely heteromyarian in form commensurate upon its lifestyle of byssal attachment to the walls of either permanently or periodically inundated karst caves. Shells are sometimes covered by travertine, precipitated calcium carbonate, and the tubes of the, similarly unique, serpulid Marifugia cavatica. Neither species occurs outside such caves and, as a consequence, the shell and tissues of C. kusceri are colourless and there are few sense organs, i.e. no statocysts and light receptors, although the pallial papillae possess tiny sense cells and there is a supra-branchial osphradium.

Mantle fusions are extensive and involve the inner folds posteriorly to create the siphons, but also the inner surfaces of the middle folds ventrally so that here the mantle is largely covered by a thin (4–5 μm), fibrous, periostracum and there are, on the separated middle folds around the pedal gape, external ciliary cleansing tracts. There are internal cleansing tracts too, but the former have been identified, hitherto, only in representatives of the Pectinidae. In terms of general anatomy, Congeria kusceri has large ctenidia and tiny labial palps as an adaptation to the mineral waters of its habitat containing little food and, thus, that little is rejected when collected. There are few sorting currents in the stomach either and the intestine is short.

The aragonitic shell comprises two layers, outer and inner, both with a homogeneous crossed-lamellar structure. Each shell valve, however, contains many growth checks, represented by thin prismatic layers. Assuming that a growth check is formed once each year, possibly in late summer when water levels fall in the caves, making them accessible for investigation, an individual of, for example 12.7 mm shell length, was possibly 25 years of age. If so, an individual of 25 mm would be very much older. Because, with age, the species lays down growth checks at progressively reduced increments, a lifespan of many decades may be possible. Extreme reduction in shell growth causes marginal thickening and incurving. The species is dioecious, i.e. separate sexes, with females brooding lecithotrophic (70 mm) eggs in the ctenidia, the ®lament bases of which become highly glandular. Mature and brooding individuals occur when water levels are low in the caves, suggesting that internal fertilization takes place at this time too, sperm transfer being in the Ælm of surrounding water to prevent loss. Fertilized eggs probably hatch either as larvae with a short planktotrophic life or as crawl-away juveniles. Analysis of large samples suggests that recruitment is probably low, and there is evidence that the species is threatened by pollution of its habitat.

Differences in the prevalence and abundance of helminth parasites amongst host populations may result from variations in resistance to infection, differences in habitat preferences, diet or social behaviour. The use of helminth parasites as ‘ecological markers’ for determining differences between morphological groups of wild-living cats in Scotland was investigated, in light of the debate over the definition of a wildcat. The prevalence and abundance of the tapeworm Taenia taeniaeformis did not differ significantly between cats designated as ‘wild’ and ‘feral’ types. The prevalence of both helminths was high (94% and 69%, respectively) and there was significant variation in worm abundance related to season and geographical area. Also, prevalence of infection with Toxocara cati was significantly higher in female cats. Cats which harboured large numbers of one worm species were also likely to harbour large numbers of the other. However, a possible relationship with cat condition was only found for T. taeniaeformis for which there was a significant negative correlation between an index of cat condition and worm abundance amongst ‘wild type’ cats, but not amongst ‘feral type’ cats. Variations in worm burdens could not be attributed to differences in the diet of the cats as there was no significant relationship between the presence of any individual prey type and either the presence or abundance of T. cati or T. taeniaeformis. There was a significant negative correlation between density and biomass of individual worms in infections of T. taeniaeformis, suggestive of a density-dependent constraint on tapeworm growth.

The systematic status of a mound-building mouse population from the Adriatic coast at Ulcinj, Montenegro (Yugoslavia), originally reported as M. hortulanus ssp., is assessed using morphological and morphometric analyses. This population was compared to other M. spicilegus samples from Ukraine & Moldavia, Voivodina (Yugoslavia) and Austria, and to M. macedonicus from Turkey, Greece, and Macedonia. Character states of selected non-metric traits, along with the presence of a typical mound-building behaviour, allowed classification of the study population with M. spicilegus. This was also supported by Canonical Variate Analysis on size-adjusted dental traits. Uni- and multivariate morphometric studies revealed marked differentiation between the Ulcinj sample and the remaining M. spicilegus populations. The great deal of morphological divergence suggests a distinct systematic position of the Adriatic population, here described as Mus spicilegus adriaticus ssp. nova. Hypotheses about the possible origin and evolutionary history of the two eastern aboriginal mouse species are discussed.

Differences in wing morphology are described for three Eurasian populations of Drosophila lummei. A truss network of wing characters was used to quantify wing size and shape for 149 individuals from Japan, Sweden and Russia. Sexual dimorphism in wing size and shape was not substantial, so the sexes were pooled and multivariate analyses conducted. Both principal components analysis and discriminant analysis of wing morphology revealed significant differences among all geographic groups. These differences indicate that morphometric analysis of wing characters can reliably discriminate between geographic groups and accurately classify individuals of the three Drosophila lummei populations. Principal components analysis also revealed that characters occurring in the same section of the wing formed correlated suites which corresponded to morphologically and functionally distinct areas of the wing. This study is unique because it detects subtle morphological differences within a single species of fruit fly across an intercontinental distribution.The results corroborate genetic studies in which geographic variation was found for inversion polymorphisms among spatially separated populations of Drosophila lummei.

I examined directional asymmetry (DA) in the number of subdigital lamellae under the fourth toe (MDA) and in injury frequency (IDA) on the hindlimbs of eight Agamidae. In no species were MDA and IDA statistically significant, neither was there significant sexual dimorphism in MDA. But a strong, positive relationship exists between MDA and IDA, contrasting with the weak positive correlation between the side of injury and the morphologically dominant side in individual lizards. Therefore the relationship between MDA and IDA results from an evolutionary process, probably involving higher survival after injury of the morphologically dominant side. This process suggests functional importance of DA in the frame of evolution caused by unsuccessful predation.

This study investigated the winter daily defecation rate (DDR) of fallow deer in a Mediterranean area, and reviewed the existing literature on the defecation rate of this species. A mean number of 26.5 pellet groups deer−1 day−1 was found in this study. This value was similar to that found in studies carried out in winter in the U.K. and Germany, suggesting that different diets and habitats do not affect fallow deer DDR.

During a study of North African mouse-eared bats in Morocco in August 1993 (Arlettaz et al., 1997) some accidental observations on chiropterophagy by the snake Coluber hippocrepis were made. This adds a new species to the list of bat-eating serpents documented so far (for a general review see Schätti, 1984). In addition, our observations lead to some recommendations for the construction of bat grilles at underground sites to minimize predation risk by snakes or other predators upon bats.

Numerous studies have documented that bats are unusually long-lived for small mammals (Tuttle & Stevenson, 1982; Jürgens & Prothero, 1987 and references therein). In the absence of data on overall population dynamics, longevity can be an important demographic parameter for interspecific comparisons (Tuttle & Stevenson, 1982). Here, we present the first data on the longevity of a small population of Tadarida teniotis.

The Eurasian badger (Meles meles) is considered to be a harvester rather than a hunter (Kruuk, 1989), because its food usually consists of vegetables and small and easily captured animals, such as worms and insects, and it rarely captures mammals (Neal, 1986). However, in the Doñana National Park of Mediterranean Spain the badger apparently behaves as a facultative specialist in the consumption of young rabbits, Oryctolagus cuniculus (Martín, Rodríguez & Delibes, 1995). In 1990, an outbreak of Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease (RHD) caused high mortality among adult rabbits in most of the Doñana area (Villafuerte et al., 1994), although all sites of Doñana were not affected to the same extent. This situation offered the possibility of comparing the food habits of badgers in the Doñana Biological Reserve (DBR) before (data of Martín et al., 1995) and after the outbreak of RHD, while using another site where rabbit density has changed little over the last few years as a control area.

During a period in the 1980s when both European mink Mustela lutreola and American mink M. vison were present in Estonia, their food was significantly different. European mink ate a greater proportion of fish and crustaceans, whereas American mink took relatively more mammals and frogs. This was probably related to a difference in habitat selection. After the disappearance of the European mink, the diet of the American mink in our main study area was similar to that of the European in the same area previously. Two alternative hypotheses are presented for the mechanisms which led to the replacement of European mink by the American species: (i) the two species have a different niche, and the American mink could replace the European mink after the latter had disappeared for unrelated reasons, or (ii) the American mink aggressively ousted the European mink, a process starting in the American mink's preferred habitat (slow flowing rivers). At present there are insufficient data to reject either of these scenarios.

We quantified the percentage cover of habitats and the extent of linear features within 2 km of 11 maternity roosts of the 55 kHz phonic type of pipistelles Pipistrellus pipistrellus in south-west England, and compared these with habitats around random points. The dominant habitats around both roosts and random points were improved grassland and built-up areas. There was significantly more water (especially water edge habitat with woodland or hedgerow on the banks), and continuous hedgerow with emergent trees, around roosts. Preference for freshwater habitats around roosts was shown in comparisons of single habitats, and in compositional analyses with and without the inclusion of urbanized random points. These habitats may be preferred by 55 kHz pipistrelles: riparian habitats support large numbers of flying insects of the types eaten by 55 kHz pipistrelles, and hedgerows may be important linear features used by bats. The conservation of continuous hedgerows and watercourses close to maternity roosts would appear to be very important for 55 kHz pipistrelles.

The ship rat Rattus rattus was once widespread throughout the U.K. It is now an endangered species with an estimated 1000 or fewer individuals present in the U.K. and the species is listed in the red data book for British mammals (Morris, 1993). However, it is listed under schedule 9 of the U.K. Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) as a non-native species that should not be released into the wild.

Domestic cats (Felis catus) living in rural areas – hereafter named ‘farm cats’ (Liberg & Sandell, 1988) – show a highly variable degree of dependence on man (Macdonald, 1991). They generally benefit from human presence by getting household food and shelter for resting and reproduction (Niewold, 1986). Nevertheless, despite regular food provisioning by man and as long as their movements are not controlled by their ‘owner’, most farm cats remain active hunters and still feed to a variable extent on wild prey, particularly lagomorphs, rodents and birds (Goldschmidt-Rothschild & Lüps, 1976; Liberg, 1984; Carss, 1995, amongst others), having sometimes a significant impact on prey species (Fitzgerald, 1988).

This study investigates errors associated with the recovery of cyprinid remains in otter Lutra lutra spraints. Cyprinid fishes (Cyprinidae – the carps) comprise the largest family of freshwater fishes in the world with around 2000 known species. They form the major group of freshwater fishes in Europe with a total of 80 species, 16 of which occur in Britain (Winfield & Nelson, 1991). These fishes are commonly taken by otters Lutra lutra throughout the predator's geographical range, their prevalence in the diet apparently varying in relation to their abundance. No more than three species are commonly recorded as otter prey in Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia (e.g. Wise, Linn & Kennedy, 1981; Kyne, Smal & Fairley, 1989; Erlinge, 1967, respectively), while at least five are in eastern Poland and southern Spain (e.g. Brzezinski, Jedrzejewski & Jedrzejewska, 1993; Lopez-Nieves & Hernando, 1984, respectively). These fishes offer an opportunity to investigate otter prey selection on relatively complex prey communities (cf. Carss et al., 1998) as they form mixed-species assemblages (Winfield & Nelson, 1991). However, Carss (1995) concluded that if studies of otter feeding ecology were to become more than mere lists of prey items, there was an urgent need to quantify current spraint analysis techniques and their associated errors more rigorously than before. This is undoubtedly true for studies which attempt to determine the species- and size-composition of cyprinids in the diet of otters.