breeding Breeding Tasmanian devi Is

a t Westbury Zoo Sarcophilus harrisii

K E R R Y T U R N E R Dfrector, Turner’s Zoo, Westbury Tasmania

The Tasmanian devils Sarcophilus harrisii at Westbury Zoo live in the same quarters all the year round, with the floor of their cages being covered with straw. Although they are always on display to the public this does not seem to affect their breeding. They mate earlier in the year in captivity than in the wild, mine beginning to mate in late February. The young are born in mid- April and leave the pouch in early September.

During the oestrous period the males become particularly vicious and the females eat very little or nothing at all, being content to lie motionless in one spot all day long. However, if at this time more than one female is in the same cage the females will fight continually among themselves, the male taking no interest at all in their argu- ments.

Contrary to the common belief that the female banishes the male from the nest after the young are born because of the danger that he might eat them, I have found that the males wash and clean the young in a solicitous way. The only instance

of poor parenthood that we have recorded was when a female abandoned her litter of three and would not feed them. We managed to foster them with a domestic cat and they were reared success-

These three are the ones that I have trained and normally they are as well-behaved as dogs. Nevertheless they have retained their wild in- stincts and if a stranger approaches they will not hesitate to bite. Strangely though, they seem to get along quite well with other animals.

After the young leave the pouch they are very inquisitive, exploring every inch of the cage, and are always playing in their water trough. However, they nil1 return straight to their mother’s pouch at the first sign of anything unusual. When they are too large to fit into the pouch they will cling to the stomach or back of either parent.

This season (1969) four of the females have been mated, and to attempt to reduce any in- breeding they hare been mated to different males from previous seasons.

fully.

Maintenance and breeding in captivity of some vespertilionid bats, with special reference to the noctule Nyctalus noctula

P . A . R A 4 C E Y & D E V R A G . K L E I M A N * Research Assistants, Wellcome Institute of Comparative Physiology, The Zoological Society of London, Great Britain

The inadequate representation of the order attempted to maintain or breed bats have, how- Chiroptera in zoos is usually attributed to prob- ever, reported some measure of success, especially lems of husbandry and management. Nearly all with the Megachiroptera and non-hibernating independent laboratory investigators who have non-insectivorous Microchiroptera (Pye, 1967;

*Present Address: Institute of Animal Behavior, Rutger’s University, IOI Warren Street, Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA.