The Dormouse Hollow

Dormouse Talk

Digest 07 June 2001 - Vol. 2, No. 4

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Contents of this Issue:

Research
1. Glis hibernation & mealworm feeding (I. Rieger)
2. Re: Mealworms (P. Vogel)
3. Slovenia: Spring 2001 Dormouse Check (B. Krystufek)
Dormouse Bibliography
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Research

1) Glis hibernation & mealworm feeding (I. Rieger)

Dear Prof. Vogel,

reading your comment in DORMOUSE TALK 2 (3), I like to mention "my hibernation anecdote" and add a question:

years ago, I kept a Dormouse male for some years. This individual never hibernated, but went only when >2 years old into torpor for 2 to 3 days.
This Dormouse male eagerly ate mealworms, probably due to the fact that he could see bats being fed with mealworms nearby.
Once, the (at that time) two injured bat individuals that were kept in our bat group suddenly and unexpectedly died on the same day, i.e. without any signs showing that their health was poor. The mealworms now no longer used for bat feedings now came to me to be fed to our dormouse. When fed, the dormouse as usually greedily rushed towards the mealworm, carried it back to the feeding place, and dropped it. The same with a second mealworm, and with a third. Later, the dormouse sniffed at mealworms out of this supply but never again touched any nor ate any. I am thus convinced that the mealworms were in some way indigestible. Looking back at the bat exitus, the behaviour of the poor bats just immediately before death suggested that the food was poisonous.

Now my questions - do you know of similar observations (dormice recognize poisonous food; poisonous mealworms)?

Regards

Ingo Rieger
Dr. phil.

2) Re: Mealworms (P. Vogel)

Dear Dr Rieger,

I thank you for your report on Glis eating mealworms and rejecting others after the death of two bats. In fact, I have no explanation. Your interpretation may be right, but I am not sure, and there is no possible test. It is often so with exceptional observations. However, some times, they may result in new projects and new insight.

Peter Vogel

Prof. Dr. Peter VOGEL
Institut d'Ecologie - Zoologie et Ecologie Animale
Bâtiment de Biologie
Université de Lausanne
CH 1015 Lausanne
Switzerland

3) Slovenia: Spring 2001 Dormouse Check (B. Kryštufek)

We checked our nest boxes in the beginning of May and mainly found new dormice (Glis), among them two females. On June 2, five animals were in one nestbox (four females and one male) and three in another (two males); males had clearly scrotal testes.

Beech is doing well this year and we expect a lot of mast; during the last visit in June I found signs that dormice were feeding on mast already.

Does anybody have observations from this spring?

Best wishes, Boris

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