Maternal discrimination of pup sex in rats

Abstract

In recent studies (Moore, 1981, 1982; Moore & Morelli, 1979), it has been found that maternal female rats spend more time licking the anogenital region of male than female offspring. This discrimination of pup sex has important implications for the development of a number of sex differences in behavior later in life, and the present study was designed to re-examine Moore's observations while allowing each pup to be individually identified. Litters of Sprague-Dawley rats were delivered by Caesarean section, and the footpads of each animal were tattooed with India ink to permit identification throughout testing. Each litter was then fostered to a maternal female and remained with her except when observations of maternal licking were made--on the fourth, seventh, and tenth days after delivery. On each of these days, the foster mother was placed in a test chamber for 30 min, and each pup was then presented individually for a 10-min session. During this time the number and duration of anogenital licking episodes were recorded. We found, as did Moore, that adult females do distinguish between their male and female pups, spending significantly more time licking the anogenital region of the males in their litters on all but the first day of testing. The possibility that the attentional bias toward male young has important consequences for behavior later in life and contributes to behavioral differences between the sexes (Beach, 1979; Moore, 1982) makes the identification of individual animals throughout development important in the analysis of these effects.

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