著者

土肥 昭夫 篠崎 桃子 寺西 あゆみ 伊澤 雅子

出版者

長崎大学

雑誌

長崎大学総合環境研究 (ISSN:13446258)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.45-57, 2007-08

---

Leyhausen (1979) observed that feral cats gathered at regular gathering sites and only sat for a long time usually in the evening, and he named this curious cat behavior as "social gathering". Up to date, no one has studied and discussed on the "social gathering", that was considered to play on any role in the social systems of feral cats. We have frequently observed a number of the gatherings and the gathering sites of the feral cats lived in the campus of Nagasaki University. Nine of eleven gathering sites were used by the respective regular membership of the feral cats that shared a common home range regard as a rigid group territory. The spacing patterns of home range and the social systems were so similar with the group territory called the "feeding group", which was organized by the cats have a kin-relation (Izawa et al.1982) However, the "gathering group" in the campus widely differed from the "feeding group" in that the most of the member of a "gathering group" in the campus were originated by non-relation individuals, which sheltered into the campus from the surround urban districts and the high traffic density areas. Consequently, we found that the "social gathering" had filled an important role of accelerating to recognize and to accept each other as the member for the common group territory preservation.