A behavioural study of the captive Muntiacus muntjak (Zimmerman, 1780) at Zoological Garden, Alipore, Kolkata
1*Sagata Mondal and 1Arijit Kumar Dutta
1Post Graduate Department of Zoology, Vidyasagar College, Salt Lake Campus, C L Block, Kolkata-700091 (India) E-mails: *sagata.mondal@rediffmail.com; duttaarijitkumar5@gmail.com *Corresponding author: Sagata Mondal
ABSTRACT
A study on Barking deer, Muntiacus muntjak (Zimmerman, 1780) was carried out in captivity at Zoological Garden, Alipore, Kolkata from July to December, 2022 to evaluate their diurnal activity patterns. Focal animal sampling method was used to determine the different activity times of 19 individuals of Barking deer after observing them. Behavioural patterns of 37 different types have been recorded under 13 major heads, of which highest frequency (33.25 %) was recorded for foraging and the lowest (1.28 %) was sexual behaviour. Males showed more sexual behaviour and less submission behaviour towards females. The nursing behaviour was observed among females with 2 young ones. Although the value of the standard error of mean is inversely proportional to the population size, it is higher due to the decrease in the sample of time spent by females in the 3 behavioural categories viz., agonistic interaction, Sexual behaviours and Scent marking and deposition. Comparing the mean value of the two sets of data using unequal variance t-Test, it is found that time spent in different behavioural patterns by male is lesser.