Biochemical variations of male scent markers alter the attractiveness in the female rats, Rattus norvegicus

Abstract

The present investigations were carried out to evaluate whether the variations in the biochemical composition of male scent markers may cause differences in the attractiveness to female rats, Rattus norvegicus. The scents originated from the preputial glands, cheek glands, skin, urine, faeces, and ventral body rubbing. The females responded to all these scent sources of male but they spent more time to ventral body rubbing, preputial glands and urine. However, the duration of response was differ from one another, which may be due to the quantitative and qualitative variations of biochemical composition of male scent sources. The females responded to male odours in the following order; ventral body rubbing, preputial gland, urine, cheek gland, skin extract and finally to the faeces as observed in the present investigation. Thus, The present work concluded that the lipids play a major role in the sexual attraction through the sex pheromones released by the male to the females of the same species.