Barbara Regaiolli

Parco Natura Viva · Research & Conservation Department

The effect of visitor presence on animal behavior needs to be evaluated to ensure the welfare and improve the husbandry of the individuals in zoos. This study aims to assess the effect of visitor presence on the behavior and welfare of pairs of Amur tiger, snow leopard, and Eurasian lynx at Parco Natura Viva, Italy. The study was made of two period...

Simple Summary Enrichment programmes are used to enhance the wellbeing of captive animals in zoos. We aimed to evaluate the effects of an enrichment programme, which included novel objects and scent stimuli, on one group of adult European wildcats hosted at Parco Natura Viva-Garda Zoological Park, Italy. We assessed the behavioural changes followin...

We examined wider society’s ability to achieve biodiversity conservation and management targets using lemurs as a case study. We evaluated the impact on lemur conservation in situ by conservation initiatives led by European zoos in Madagascar exploring the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria’s Conservation Database projects in terms of perform...

The union or reunion of animals with social groups can be a challenging situation, and little has been published about it when solitary species are concerned. Therefore, the aim of the present study was two-fold: (1) to advocate the need for systematic publications about strategies and the outcomes of reunion episodes in zoos and other facilities;...

The red panda is listed as “endangered” in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, due to the rapid population decline. Improving our knowledge on the red panda biology and ethology is necessary to enhance its husbandry and breeding in zoos. Behavioural variety, intended as the presence of a wide array of species-specific behaviour, has been consi...

The current research focuses on color preference between red and green stimuli and manual laterality in the emperor tamarin (Saguinus imperator). Trichromacy in primates has been related to a foraging advantage allowing frugivore primates to distinguish ripe from unripe fruits as well to socio-sexual communication, as trichromats would be advantage...

Although some studies investigated lateralization in reptiles, little research has been done on chelonians, focusing only on few behaviours such as righting response and escape preference. The aim of this study was to investigate lateralization in Aldabra giant tortoises ( Aldabrachelys gigantea ), focusing on asymmetrical positioning of the limbs...

Social laterality in non-human primates has started to attract attention in recent years. The positioning of individuals during social interactions could possibly suggest the nature of a relationship and the social ranking of the subjects involved. The subjects of the present study were 12 adult Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) housed in a zoolog...

Brain hemispheres have different functions and control the movements of the contralateral side of the body. One of these functions is processing emotions. The right hemisphere hypothesis suggests that the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for emotional processing, so the left side of the body is activated in emotive contexts such as soci...

Early-life experiences may considerably affect the behavioural patterns of adult primates. Particularly, atypical rearing practices might lead to abnormal behaviours and social-sexual deficiencies in captive, adult non-human primates. We conducted behavioural observations of mother-reared ( n = 5) and hand-reared ( n = 6) adult chimpanzees in a soc...

Cognitive abilities have been found to vary widely among parrots, within and between species, and seem to be related to motor lateralization. Indeed, as shown in Australian parrots and other species, lateralized psittacines perform better in cognitive tests than non-lateralized subjects. The aim of this study was to assess foot preference of seven...

Behavioural and brain lateralization is widespread among non-human vertebrates. Motor lateralization has been investigated in the domestic dog, revealing that “pawedness” in this species seems to be sex and task related; however, few if any studies considered this asymmetry in wolves (Canis lupus). The aim of this study was to investigate the paw p...

Many studies have highlighted evidence of lateralized behaviours in vertebrates and invertebrates, indicating that cerebral lateralization might not be uniquely human. Flamingos, as highly social species, might represent an interesting model in the study of lateralization, as this trait appears to be useful in gregarious animals. This study aims to...

Tamarins and marmosets are small-bodied social callitrichines. Wild callitrichines feed on exudates, such as sap and gum; particularly, marmosets are mainly gummivores, while tamarins consume gums only occasionally and opportunistically. Zoo marmosets and tamarins are usually provided with gum arabic as an alternative to the exudates normally found...

Nowadays, animal welfare studies in zoo animals have been focusing on the presence of species-specific behaviour and the absence of abnormal behaviour. Discussing time budgets and behavioural repertoires found in wild and zoo settings seems to be valuable to assess animal welfare. Recently, the Behavioural Variety Index (BVI) by Spiezio and colleag...

Investigating perceptual and cognitive abilities of zoo animals might help to improve their husbandry and enrich their daily life with new stimuli. Developing new environmental enrichment programs and devices is hence necessary to promote species-specific behaviors that need to be maintained in controlled environments. As far as we are aware, no st...

Research in zoos is important to increase the knowledge about the behaviour and biology of endangered species. Grey wolves live in packs based on dominance hierarchy and leadership and show complex social relationship. Three models have been proposed to explain wolf social structure: linear hierarchy, sex/age graded hierarchy or family relationship...

The Northern bald ibis ( Geronticus eremita ) (NBI) is one of the most threatened birds in the world. Intense conservation efforts have been undertaken and several research projects on the species are being done in Morocco and in Europe. Observing animal behaviour has been proved to be an efficient and non-invasive technique to assess the animal we...

Ibis behaviour raw data Durations of individual and social behaviours per subject. The BVI sheet reports the number of behaviuoral items performed by each subject.

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Same-sex pair bonds have been documented in several animal species and they are widespread in birds. However, little is known about the evolutionary origin and the adaptive value of such behaviour. The aim of this study was to investigate the parental behaviour of four zoo female greater flamingos involved in two breeding pairs, housed in a flock a...

Asymmetries in the maternal behaviour and anatomy might play an important role in the development of primate manual lateralization. In particular, early life asymmetries in mother’s and infant’s behaviour have been suggested to be associated with the development of the hand preference of the offspring. The aim of this study was to investigate the p...

The presence of group-level handedness in non-human primates remains controversial, as different studies have produced inconsistent results. Bimanual coordinated tasks have been found to elicit more pronounced hand preferences than simple unimanual tasks. The aim of this study was to examine manual lateralization in a group of 15 Barbary macaques d...

Due to the great number of greater flamingos in captivity and their long life span, studying their behavior and welfare might be useful to improve the husbandry and breeding of this species in zoos. This study aimed to investigate factors affecting the breeding activity of captive greater flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) from 2012 to 2016. To esti...

Tortoises perceive different colours and rely on the visual system to find food. However, few studies have considered colour preference in tortoises, especially in land species. The aim of this study is to investigate whether Aldabra giant tortoises (Geochelone gigantea) housed in Parco Natura Viva (VR), an Italian zoological garden, show a specifi...

The wildcat (Felis silvestris) is considered a “strictly protected” species, and it is included in CITES Appendix II. Nevertheless, it is classed as threatened in many European countries. Improving our knowledge on the behavior of the European wildcat might be valuable for the conservation of this species in the wild as well as for its husbandry in...

Visual illusions are commonly used in animal cognition studies to compare visual perception among vertebrates. To date, researchers have focused their attention mainly on birds and mammals, especially apes and monkeys, but no study has investigated sensitivity to visual illusions in prosimians. Here we investigated whether lemurs (Lemur catta) perc...

Positive reinforcement training (PRT) is an established tool to facilitate animal husbandry, care and research in modern zoos, with potential positive implications for captive animal welfare. The study explored the role of an isolation PRT training programme on the well-being of ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta). Eleven subjects were observed during...

In the last years, studies on captive greater flamingos have increased. Research on zoo animals is important to improve the knowledge on these species and to improve their ex-situ and in-situ conservation. The aim of the present study was to investigate the parental behaviour of a captive colony of greater flamingo hosted at Parco Natura Viva, an I...

The zoo-science literature on flamingos, and avian species in general, is lacking. However, this kind of research is important to improve the knowledge on these species and to improve their ex-situ and in-situ conservation. The aims of the present study were to assess the welfare of a captive colony of greater flamingo hosted at Parco Natura Viva,...

The zoo-science literature on flamingos, and avian species in general, is lacking. However, this kind of research is important to improve the knowledge on these species and to improve their ex-situ and in-situ conservation. The aims of the present study were to assess the welfare of a captive colony of greater flamingo hosted at Parco Natura Viva,...

Non-human primate species are considered as good models for human cancer research. Despite the relevant phylogenetic position of prosimians, few reports of neoplastic diseases have been described in these species. The current study investigated implication of an intestinal T-cell lymphoma in a 5-year-old female ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) hoste...

In the last decades, several studies on mammal motor lateralization have been carried out. However, data on marsupials are still underrepresented in the literature, despite their importance in tracing the evolution of motor laterality and its functional value. This study aimed at investigating motor lateralization in a sample of captive red-necked...

Handedness is the most evident behavioral asymmetry in humans: to study nonhuman primate hand preference could be optimal to investigate the evolutionary origin of handedness in our species, even though behavioral asymmetries are widespread among vertebrates. This study investigated hand preferences in 32 Old World monkeys and 26 great apes during...

Assessing manual lateralization in non-human primates could be an optimal way to understand the adaptive value of this asymmetry in humans. Though many studies have investigated hand preferences in Old and New World monkeys and apes, fewer studies have considered manual lateralization in strepsirrhines, especially in experimental tasks. This study...

Environmental enrichment programs are widespread among modern zoos and different forms of enrichment could be found. Since meerkats, as well as other carnivore species, significantly rely on olfaction to communicate with conspecifics, olfactory enrichment could represent an optimal way to improve their welfare in captivity, stimulating the performa...

Non-human primates represent models to understand the evolution of handedness in humans. Despite several researches have been investigating non-human primates handedness, few studies examined the relationship between target position, hand preference and task complexity. This study aimed at investigating macaque handedness in relation to target late...

In modern zoos, training should be an integral component of the animal care and management. The benefits of training include the opportunity for positive interactions with caretakers. This study was carried out with a group of vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) housed at the Garda Zoological Park (Italy). Using focal animal sampling, we observed...

Nowadays, training is widespread among modern zoos and represents an optimal way to improve animal care and management. Despite the evidence that training is beneficial for animals and caregivers in daily husbandry and research, few studies considered the implications of training on animal behavior and welfare. This research aims at investigating t...

To provide the opportunity for normal species-specific behaviours captive chimpanzees should be housed in social groups and the introduction of new social partners could be useful to reproduce fission-fusion social organization. In particular, hand-reared chimpanzees should be introduced in a social group in order to perform species-specific behavi...

Evidence for behavioural and brain lateralization is now widespread among non-human vertebrates. Studies about motor lateralization in the domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) reveal that “pawedness” in this species seems to be task and sex related but no studies considered this asymmetry in the wolf (Canis lupus). The aim of this study is to investiga...

Non-human primates represent an optimal model to investigate the evolutionary origin of human handedness. The main theories aiming to explain hand preference in non-human primates link this asymmetry to factor such as posture, individual experience and learning or task complexity. The aim of this study is to assess the hand preference in both simpl...

Many attempts have been made to better understand the evolution and development of human handedness by studying non-human primates. However, although a human-like handedness have been reported in some researches, other authors found no group level hand preference in these species. The lack of concordance between studies about non-human primate hand...

The question whether nonhuman primates exhibit population-level hand preference remains a topic of considerable debate. Actually, literature results about non-human primates hand preference give rise to an heterogeneous picture of their manual lateralization. Although some authors have argued that population-level handedness is evident in some prim...

Literature highlights asymmetrical behaviours in many vertebrate species, due to a functional lateralisation of the brain (Vallortigara 2000, Rogers 2002). Considering the preference for one limb or side is the ordinary way to investigate hemispheric specialisation. Although some authors investigated paw lateralisation in the domestic dog (Canis fa...

Motivation for participation in social grooming and social play as well as in performing individual behaviours differs for juvenile and adult primates. The aim of this study is to investigate the social and individual behavioural repertories of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) focusing on similarities and differences between juveniles and adults....

Right handedness seems to be the main indicator of hemispheric specialization in humans, due to its diffusion, strength and consistency between tasks (PAPADEMETRIOU et al., 2005). To understand the evolution and the adaptive value of human handedness, several non-human primate species have been studied. However, whether these species show a populat...

Social learning could be defined as the modification of an individual’s behaviour through the observation of others, although it could take place with different mechanisms, ranging from local and stimulus enhancement to imitation and goal emulation. Imitation has been considered a peculiar characteristic of humans. However, it is important to under...

The role of training in the management of captive populations has changed significantly over time and it has evolved into a procedure that allows medical treatment, behavioral researches and improves the animal welfare. Thus animal training with positive reinforcement has become a key component of animal husbandry in the modern zoo. The aim of this...

Understanding hand preference as an index of cerebral lateralisation has been motivated a considerable amount of researches. As non-human primates are phylogenetically close to humans, they are ideal models to investigate the precursors of brain hemispheric specialisation in our species. Few studies have examined the relationship between target pos...

A few studies have examined the relationship between target’s laterality and hand preference in non-human primates. This study aims to verify whether monkeys handedness affects their choice of a target or whether target position determines a retrieval using the hand closest to it. Using a two alternative choice test, seven pig-tailed macaques were...

Several studies highlight that visitor density and intensity may influence captive animal behaviour (Fernandez et al., 2009; Hosey, 2005; Sellinger & Ha, 2005; Hosey, 2000). Zoo visitors effects on captive animal behaviour may be classified in three different classes: a source of stress, a source of enrichment, or relatively neutral (Hosey, 2000)....