ABS 2023
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Enclosure style preferences are influenced by experience in bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps)
Melanie Denomme, Glenn J. Tattersall. Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada

To evaluate if animals value the enrichments provided to them, one may assess their behaviour when they are able to either interact with or ignore those enrichments. However, preferences for enrichment can be influenced by an animal’s previous experiences; for example, animals may ignore enrichments unless the enrichment is familiar. In snakes, enclosures which mimic the animal’s natural habitat are often preferred. In turtles, such preferences are observed even when turtles had never experienced naturalistic environments before. We assessed the preferences of bearded dragon lizards (Pogona vitticeps) for either naturalistic (NT) or standard (SD) style enclosures by recording the amount of time spent in each style when both were freely available. To consider the effects of experience with enclosure styles, preferences were assessed twice, once after lizards had been housed in either style for 200 days. Surprisingly, we found that the initial enclosure style significantly influenced preferences; lizards initially housed in SD enclosures preferred the style which matched the style of their home cages, but this was not the case for lizards initially housed in NT enclosures.