Puma communication behaviours: understanding functional use and variation among sex and age classes

Intraspecific communication for mate selection sometimes varies between sexes based on differ-ent evolutionary life history patterns. Solitary felids use communication for territorial defence and location of mates, for which they use scent-marking behaviours including scraping, urine spray-ing, body rubbing, caterwauling, cheek rubbing, and the flehmen response, but these behaviours are not well understood in pumas (Puma concolor). We used motion-triggered video cameras to document the use of communication behaviours by male and female pumas, and used a series of experimental treatments to determine the mechanisms and importance of visual and olfactory cues in puma scrapes. We found that pumas use the physical scrape to locate communications, and then use urine to convey and interpret the communication itself. We also found significant differ-ences among puma age and sex classes in the proportion of use and duration of time behaviours were displayed. Mature males spent significantly longer durations (x = 22.1 s) on producing be-haviours (scraping, body rubbing, and caterwauling behaviours) than mature females (x = 3.3 s), and males used scraping (78.5%) and body rubbing (12.4%) behaviours at a higher proportion of visits than females (13.6 and 2.7%, respectively). Mature females spent significantly longer dura