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Developing a Catalog of Socio-Sexual Behaviors of Beluga Whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in the Care of Humans
Open accessAbstract
The repertoire of socio-sexual and sexual behaviors of cetaceans is relatively unknown.The purpose of the current study was to advance the existing knowledge of socio-sexual behavior of beluga whales through the development of a behavioral catalog that lists the full repertoire of sexual and socio-sexual behaviors.A behavioral catalog was developed initially from 800 hours of observations, collected across a 7-year period from 11 belugas ranging in age (birth to 30+ years), sex, and social groupings.Using this behavioral catalog, observations of eight additional belugas housed between two other facilities were coded for socio-sexual and sexual behaviors.Sociosexual and sexual behaviors of belugas were similar across all three facilities.Socio-sexual and sexual behaviors involved sequenced behaviors, had lateralized components, and were often subtle in nature.Some of these behaviors overlapped with potentially aggressive actions but showed distinct differences in their form, or topography.Complexity and duration of socio-sexual interactions varied depending on the age and sex of the participating belugas.The development of a complete behavioral catalog, or ethogram, of the socio-sexual and sexual behaviors has profound influences on understanding the mechanisms involved for successful reproduction, a problem that several groups of belugas in their natural habitat are currently facing.
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“Both whales exhibited very few social behaviors such as jaw claps and upward head jerks (which have been described as social behavior in beluga whales [48]) towards the mirror in subsequent sessions, which typically occurred during sessions in which contingency testing or self-directed behaviors were also exhibited by the same whale (see Fig 1A and 1B).”
From Evidence for mirror self-recognition in beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) (2026) · cites this paper as [48]
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Sorted by citations
Evidence for mirror self-recognition in beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas)
Mildener, A., Buchman, D., Ragir, S., & Reiss, D. (2026) · PLOS One · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0348287
“Notably, in the later sessions of Phase I, Natasha and Maris exhibited upward head jerks and jaw claps, behaviors generally categorized as social agonistic behaviors [8,48,54] during sessions in which they also exhibited contingency testing and self-directed behaviors (e.g., bubble bite play).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Hill, H., Dietrich, S., Yeater, D., McKinnon, M., Miller, M., Aibel, S., & Dove, A.
- Affiliations
- St. Mary's University (CA)
- University at Buffalo, State University of New York (US)
- Sacred Heart University (US)
- SeaWorld Entertainment (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hill, Heather
- Venue
- Animal Behavior and Cognition
- Publisher
- Animal Behavior and Cognition
- Published
- 2015-05-01
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 105-123
- ISSN
- 2372-4323 (ISSN-L)
- 2372-5052
- OpenAlex
- W2179350543
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 2.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Animal Behavior and Cognition (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Marine animal studies overview
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Keywords
- beluga whale, sociosexual behavior, sexual behavior, ethogram, behavioral repertoire, cetacean reproduction, captive cetaceans, behavioral lateralization, aggression, age and sex differences
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