Abstract or Keywords
Studies concerning the social behaviours of non-avian reptiles have generally lagged behind other taxa, yet many reptiles are among the most globally threatened animal groups, and their behaviours are key to conservation successes. Herein, we utilized a captive-reared cohort of headstart Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus) to test if these animals first discern soil type by social familiarity and/or tortoise exposure and then we tested how social familiarity and sibling status affected social behaviours between individuals. We found that headstart Gopher Tortoises preferentially chose familiar soil over soil that had never been in contact with a Gopher Tortoise, but they also preferred soil that had been in contact with non-familiar individuals over familiar soil. Tortoises displayed the social behaviour of sniffing disproportionately to non-familiar individuals, regardless of sibling status, over familiar individuals. Other social behaviours of nipping, chasing, headbobbing, and colliding were performed independently of social familiarity or sibling status. Taken together, this set of experiments demonstrates that Gopher Tortoises have a high degree of social nuance that is built upon familiarity, and these results could have direct effects on how to optimize headstarting protocols for restoring wild populations.
•Using a cohort of Gopher Tortoises temporarily raised in captivity for conservation, we found that individual tortoises preferentially chose to be on soil from non-familiar tortoises over their own soil and also tortoises avoided soil that had not come into contact with any Gopher Tortoise.•By separating clutch-mates at hatching, we isolated effects of social familiarity from maternal sibling status and found that Gopher Tortoises disproportionately displayed the social behaviour of sniffing non-familiar individuals, regardless of sibling status.•We found that non-familiar sibling pairs did not display any social behaviours differently than non-familiar non-sibling pairs, suggesting that sibling status is not a key social metric that assorts wild Gopher Tortoises into social groups.•Together, these results suggest that Gopher tortoises are both spatially and socially curious yet cautious in both navigating new environments (e.g., novel soil) and interacting with new individuals (e.g., non-familiar members of the same cohort).