Oro-manual assessment of food preservability in a wild rodent

Abstract

Animals encounter a variety of food items and must determine their future value and preservability. Because animals in laboratory settings are typically provided with uniform food items, there is a dearth of knowledge on how animals assess natural complex food. Here, we dissect how wild agoutis-a critical seed disperser of the Neotropics-decide whether to consume or bury food in small caches, i.e. scatter-hoarding. We find that agoutis preferentially cache nuts over fresh fruits and, when foraging, undergo a sharp transition from eating to scatter-hoarding. Remarkably, agoutis scatter-hoarded empty nuts with intact shells but not filled nuts with broken shells. This decision was dependent on an oro-manual food assessment, an ecological information-seeking behavior. They used their lips and incisors - a somatosensory fovea - to navigate the surface of the nut optimally accumulating decision-critical sensory information. Together, these findings provide a mechanistic account of preservability assessment in a wild rodent, revealing how information-seeking behaviors support long-term value optimization in natural environments.