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Originally published in Science Express on 18 May 2006
Science 16 June 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5780, pp. 1662 - 1665
DOI: 10.1126/science.1126539
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Reports

Food-Caching Western Scrub-Jays Keep Track of Who Was Watching When

Joanna M. Dally,1,2 Nathan J. Emery,1 Nicola S. Clayton2*

Western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) hide food caches for future consumption, steal others' caches, and engage in tactics to minimize the chance that their own caches will be stolen. We show that scrub-jays remember which individual watched them during particular caching events and alter their recaching behavior accordingly. We found no evidence to suggest that a storer's use of cache protection tactics is cued by the observer's behavior.

1 Sub-department of Animal Behavior, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 8AA, UK.
2 Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: nsc22{at}cam.ac.uk

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)