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. 1994 Jul;20(7):1505-16.
doi: 10.1007/BF02059876.

Why are predator urines aversive to prey?

D L Nolte  1 , J R Mason, G Epple, E Aronov, D L Campbell
Affiliations

Why are predator urines aversive to prey?

D L Nolte et al. J Chem Ecol. 1994 Jul.

Abstract

Predator odors often repel prey species. In the present experiments, we investigated whether changes in the diet of a predator, the coyote (Canis latrans) would affect the repellency of its urine. Furthermore, because predator odors have a high sulfur content, reflecting large amounts of meat in the diet, we investigated the contribution of sulfurous odors to repellency. Our results were consistent with the hypothesis that diet composition and sulfurous metabolites of meat digestion are important for the repellency of predator odors to potential prey.

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