At 7:43 PM -0700 6/7/02, z brubruff wrote: > >I disagree, we learn more than that. >Until I got wild freshly caught Box Turtles many >years ago, I had no idea they, lowly reptiles, had >different personalities, and preference for different >foods, to the degree that some preferred mostly meat >or insect diet and some wanted mostly fruit/vegetable >diet.
...and do you have evidence that this 'preference' for different foods is a result of "different personalities" rather than a specific need to satisfy a possibly dietary lack? There are many factors involved in keeping reptiles in captivity as I'm sure you're aware. I also hope you're aware that if an animal is lacking a particular vitamin or component of its diet it will seek to rectify this by eating suitable foodstuffs (=specific hunger). I still see insectivorous reptiles being fed nothing but mealworms and herbivorous species being fed little more than lettuce. If you provide your animals with a wide variety of foodstuffs then good for you (but remember, it's still not a 'wild' diet) and if you succeed in satisfying your animal's total dietary requirements, then I'm sure your different preferences will disappear (unless you're looking at ontogenetic differences etc). At 7:43 PM -0700 6/7/02, z brubruff wrote: > >This 'study in captivity' tells u a lot about the >animals in the wild. What they eat, how they behave, >that they are individuals and need to be treated as >such. Really? Apart from the obvious areas such as morphology etc, studies in captivity tell us how wild animals (or captive bred) animals behave in captivity. Again, unless you provide identical conditions to 'the wild' then what you're seeing is an artifact of captive conditions. You will learn about what an animal eats (OUT OF WHAT FOOD YOU PROVIDE), how they behave (WHEN CAPTIVE) and hopefully, that the best way to treat a captive animal is to NOT keep it captive. Cheers Phil [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
