Natural animal food preference of Chinese mole shrew (Anourosorex squamipes) from an urban area: a laboratory study

Most wild animals are urban avoiders, but some others become adapters or exploiters successfully living in urban areas. Often, the latter is assumed to be attracted into cities by readily accessible and digestive anthropogenic food resources. Here, we quantified food preferences of sixteen (eight females and eight males) Chinese mole shrews (Anourosorex squamipes) captured from an urban area for "cafeteria tests" in laboratory. Shrews were presented with twelve foods allocated into three sets (natural animal, natural plant, and anthropogenic food). Once the most two highly consumed food items from each set were determined, six items were pooled together to form a mixed food. We found that these urban shrews tended to prefer raw pork, peanut, and cooked pork over others when offered three single food sets, respectively, whereas natural animal food was more preferred over the rest when the set of mixed food was offered. The results show that urban shrews acquired nutrition by consuming the significant preferred diets. Nevertheless, access to natural animal resources seems still mandatory for urban shrews, while animals could become more tolerant to disturbance because of these easily exploited and abundant fallback anthropogenic resources in urban environments.

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