J Ethol (2017) 35:13–19
DOI 10.1007/s10164-016-0492-6

VIDEO ARTICLE

The scent of your enemy is my friend? The acquisition of large
carnivore scent by a smaller carnivore
Maximilian L. Allen1,2 • Micaela S. Gunther3 • Christopher C. Wilmers1

Received: 9 June 2016 / Accepted: 23 August 2016 / Published online: 7 September 2016
Ó Japan Ethological Society and Springer Japan 2016

Abstract Scent marking is critical to intraspecific communication in many mammal species, but little is known
regarding its role in communication among different species.
We used 4 years of motion-triggered video to document theuse of scent marking areas—termed ‘‘community scrapes’’—by pumas (Puma concolor) (http://www.momo-p.com/show
detail-e.php?movieid=momo160812pc01a) and other carnivore species. We found that gray foxes (Urocyon
cinereoargenteus) routinely rubbed their cheeks on puma
scrapes(http://www.momo-p.com/showdetail-e.php?movieid=momo160812uc01a), and tested a series of hypotheses
to determine its function. We found that gray foxes selectedpuma scrapes over other objects, and cheek rubbing by foxes
was also correlated with how recently a puma had visited thescrape, suggesting that foxes were intent upon accumulating
fresh puma scent. Cheek rubbing by foxes was not correlatedwith their breeding season or with how recently another fox
had visited the site. Finally we found a cascading pattern in theoccurrence of pumas, coyotes (Canis latrans) and gray foxes atcommunity scrapes, suggesting that gray foxes may use puma
scent to deter predation. This is the first published study to findevidence of a subordinate species using the scent of a dominant
species to communicate with heterospecifics. The behavioral
cascade we found in scent marking patterns also suggests that& Maximilian L. Allen
maximilian.allen@wisc.edu
1Center for Integrated Spatial Research, Environmental
Studies Department, University of California, 1156 HighStreet, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA

2

Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of
Wisconsin, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53704, USA

3

Department of Wildlife, Humboldt State University, 1 Harpst
Street, Arcata, CA 95521, USA

scent marking could be a mechanism that impacts the distribution and abundance of species. Additional videos pertaining
to this article include http://www.momo-p.com/showdetail-e.
php?movieid=momo160812uc02a, and http://www.momo-p.
com/showdetail-e.php?movieid=momo160812uc03a.
Keywords Cheek rubbing  Communication  Interspecificinteractions  Puma concolor  Scent marking  Urocyon
cinereoargenteus

Introduction
Scent marking is an integral aspect of communication formany mammals (Ralls 1971; Johnson 1973). Scent marking is used to deposit volatile chemical compounds tocommunicate signals (Ralls 1971; Johnson 1973), and isoften used as an indirect method of communicating withconspecifics (Roper et al. 1993; Bel et al. 1999; King andGurnell 2007; Allen et al. 2015a). Scent marking is an
important aspect of intraspecific communication for mateselection (Bel et al. 1999; Allen et al. 2015a) and advertising the use of a territory (Roper et al. 1993; King andGurnell 2007), as well as for other functions such as noting
food resources (Henry 1977; Pineiro and Barja 2015).
Although there are many studies on intraspecific communication, there is a general lack of current literature on
how scent marking is used for interspecific communication(but see Rostain et al. 2004; Apfelbach et al. 2005). Thereis some literature exploring how animals respond to
vocalizations of heterospecifics (Shriner 1998; Magrath
et al. 2015), and the lack of studies on interspecific communication through scent marking may be due to its
complexity and difficulty in studying. Based on the lack ofliterature about interspecific scent marking it would be

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reasonable to conclude that interspecific communication
through scent marking does not frequently occur. It is more
likely, however, that scent marking is an important aspectof interspecific interactions in mammal communities ofwhich we remain remarkably unaware. Mammals within
given communities are known to partition resources(Schoener 1974), and subordinate species avoid dominant
ones both spatially and temporally (Ordiz et al. 2012;
Darnell et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2015). Scent marking may
be key to both partitioning resources and avoidance tactics,
and it is therefore important to document instances ofinterspecific communication and scent marking to understand their functional and adaptive significance.
Over the course of 4 years, we documented gray foxes(Urocyon cinereoargenteus) visiting scent marking areas
termed ‘‘community scrapes’’ (Allen et al. 2014). Community scrapes are scent marking areas used by the carnivore
guild (Allen et al. 2015a), including pumas (Puma concolor),
who use the area for territorial marking and mate selection(Allen et al. 2014, 2015a, 2016). Community scrapes aredefined as the broader areas across which scent marking
occurs, as opposed to the ‘‘individual scrape’’ created by anindividual puma during a scent marking event (Allen et al.
2014) (Fig. 1, http://www.momo-p.com/showdetail-e.
php?movieid=momo160812pc01a). The gray foxes weobserved frequently used olfactory investigation and thenleft urine scent marks at these areas. Less frequently grayfoxes exhibited cheek rubbing behavior, where they rubbed
their cheek, jaw, and neck on puma individual scrapes orother nearby objects (Fig. 2, http://www.momo-p.com/
showdetail-e.php?movieid=momo160812uc01a). The useof puma community scrapes for scent marking, and particularly the cheek rubbing behavior, by gray foxes suggests
some aspect of interspecific scent marking was occurring.
We could not find any reference in the literature to interspecific communication through cheek rubbing; thus we
examined gray fox behavior of cheek rubbing on puma

Fig. 1 A video of a puma creating an individual scrape. The area inview of the video is a community scrape

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Fig. 2 A video of a gray fox exhibiting cheek rubbing behavior on an
individual scrape made by a puma

individual scrapes further to evaluate its functional significance through testing a series of hypotheses.
Cheek rubbing, where an animal rubs its cheek, chin,neck, or shoulder on objects, is a form of scent marking thatis infrequently documented compared to marking with urine
or feces, but is nevertheless exhibited by many mammals(Reiger 1979; Mellen 1993; Gosling and McKay 1990; Belet al. 1999; Allen et al. 2014). Some species, like marmots(Marmota marmota) primarily scent mark through cheekrubbing (Bel et al. 1999), and dominant rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) were found to exhibit cheek rubbing more
frequently than subordinate individuals (Mykytowycz1965). These observations suggest that dominance can be
exhibited through cheek rubbing as well as through otherforms of scent marking. These species are easily observed,
and the infrequency of documentation of cheek rubbing formany species could be due to the difficulty of observation;
cheek rubbing could be of greater importance than generally
recognized. Cheek rubbing releases compounds from thesebaceous gland, allowing the animal to deposit its scent on
an object (Ralls 1971; Johnson 1973). At the same time,cheek rubbing provides the opportunity for an animal toaccumulate scent from the environment onto itself (Johnson
1973; Gosling and McKay 1990).
We first determined baseline behavior for gray foxes atpuma community scrapes and how this varied when they
exhibited cheek rubbing. This included documenting theirfrequency of display of olfactory investigation and urine
scent marking, and the duration of a visit during which they
exhibited cheek rubbing behavior in contrast to times they
did not. Next we generated two alternative hypotheses toevaluate the role interspecific communication played in thisbehavior; during cheek rubbing: (1) gray foxes may bedepositing their own scent onto the substrate in order tocompete with other conspecific individuals or advertise formates; alternatively (2) gray foxes may be transferring

J Ethol (2017) 35:13–19

puma scent onto themselves either for mate attraction or
predator avoidance.
Canids and other carnivores are well known for rubbing
themselves on various scents (Johnson 1973; Gosling and
McKay 1990). If cheek rubbing behavior by gray foxes on
puma individual scrapes is for mate attraction, we expecteda significant peak in the display of this behavior in late
winter to spring to coincide with the peak of the breeding
season. Alternatively, gray foxes may rub puma scent onto
themselves in order to dissuade predation by larger
predators, including coyotes (Canis latrans) and bobcats(Lynx rufus). Smaller carnivores have been shown toincrease caution and alter their feeding behavior when
exposed to the scent of larger carnivores (Garvey et al.
2016). If coyotes and bobcats exhibit caution when
exposed to puma scent, gray foxes may be able to deter
intraguild predation by applying puma scent to themselves
and potentially causing a coyote or bob cat to hesitate in an
attack and allow the gray fox to escape.
We tested the following predictions: if gray foxes aredepositing scent, they should be cheek rubbing on otheravailable objects as much as on puma individual scrapes. In
addition, because scent is ephemeral, if gray foxes were
depositing scent to communicate to conspecifics, we
expected the exhibition of cheek rubbing behavior to have asignificant positive relationship with how recently a gray fox
had visited, because they were likely responding to the mostrecent visit of a conspecific. Alternatively, if gray foxes
aimed to acquire puma scent, we predicted that greater than
50 % of the objects on which they cheek rubbed should bepuma individual scrapes. We further expected that gray fox
cheek rubbing would have a significant positive relationshipwith how recently a puma created the individual scrape,
because they would be trying to accumulate the puma scent
before it dissipated. Testing whether cheek rubbing behavior
is for predation avoidance is more difficult, as we could not
directly test the success of such a strategy. Therefore, we
instead tested for differences in the relative abundance of thefour carnivore species (gray fox, bobcat, coyote, puma) at
community scrapes, in order to assess whether or not puma
scent dissuaded bobcats and coyotes from using these areas,
and whether our predation avoidance hypothesis was worth
follow-up study in the future.

Materials and methods
Study area
We conducted our study in a 1700 km2 area in the Santa
Cruz Mountains, including parts of Santa Cruz, San Mateo,
and Santa Clara Counties of California. Detailed descriptions of the study area are available from Wilmers et al.

15(2013) and Allen et al. (2014). The study area was boundedby the Pacific Ocean to the west, the cities of San Francisco
and San Jose to the north, and Highway 101 to the east. An
arterial highway (Highway 17) bisected the study area.
Major habitat types in the study area varied with distancefrom the coast, and included coastal scrub, annual grassland, redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forest, and chaparral. Elevation ranged from sea level to 1155 m. The
climate is best described as mild Mediterranean, with the
majority of rainfall occurring from November to April.
Compliance with ethical standards
The data collected in this manuscript were obtained
through non-invasive methods, and no animals were handled, drugged, or harmed during the course of the study.
All protocols were performed within the guidelines set by
the University of California and the American Society of
Mammalogists. The authors have no known conflicts ofinterest.
Field methods
We documented 299 puma community scrapes from 2008
to 2015 using a custom algorithm to find potential community scrapes followed by field visits to confirm or deny(Allen et al. 2014). We then set up motion-triggered video
cameras with infrared flash (Bushnell Trophy Cam, Overland Park, KS) at 26 spatially independent community
scrapes from 2011 to 2015. We programmed the cameras torecord a 60-s video every time motion was detected with a
1-s refractory period. We documented the date, time, andduration of visits by gray foxes, pumas, bobcats, andcoyotes to community scrapes. For visits by gray foxes, we
also documented the display of: cheek rubbing (where thegray fox rubbed its cheek and chin back and forth on an
object), olfactory investigation (noted by its nose being
within one head length of the object), and urine scentmarking (where the fox squatted or lifted its leg and urinated on an object).
Statistical analyses
We used program R version 3.1.1 (R Core Team 2015) for
our statistical analyses, and in each statistical test, weconsidered p \ 0.05 to be statistically significant.
We first summarized baseline behavior data in order tolay a foundation for understanding unique behaviors ingray foxes. We tested whether gray foxes performed different behaviors when exhibiting cheek rubbing at a community scrape than when they did not exhibit the behavior
during a visit. We first used a two-tailed t-test (Sokal andRohlf 1987) to determine if the duration of a visit was

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longer when exhibiting cheek rubbing behavior as opposed
to none. Due to the lack of normality we first log-transformed the data to meet the assumptions of the t-test. We
then used 2 9 2 chi-square tests (Sokal and Rohlf 1987) todetermine if olfactory investigation and urine scent marking were more frequently displayed during visits whenfoxes exhibited cheek rubbing as compared to when they
did not.
We tested two predictions to distinguish whether grayfoxes were more focused on depositing their scent onto thesubstrate or applying puma scent onto themselves. If grayfoxes are cheek rubbing to deposit scent, they should beequally as likely to cheek rub on other objects as theywould be on puma individual scrapes. We used a 2 9 2
chi-square test to analyze the selection of each given object
compared to puma individual scrapes. Second, if grayfoxes aimed to acquire puma scent, we suggest that greaterthan 50 % of the objects they cheek rub on should be puma
individual scrapes. We used a 2 9 2 chi-square test to
analyze observed values against expected values of cheekrubbing on puma individual scrapes.
To test whether the exhibition of cheek rubbing behavior
was positively correlated with how recently a gray fox had
visited a community scrape (depositing scent), or with how
recently the puma created an individual scrape (acquiring
scent), we used a generalized linear model (GLM) with abinomial link, with fox cheek rubbing or not as our binomial
dependent variable, and the number of days since a fox or
puma visited as our respective independent variables.
To test whether fox cheek rubbing behavior is exhibitedfor mate attraction purposes, we used analyses of variance(ANOVA) (Sokal and Rohlf 1987) to determine whether
gray fox visitation or cheek rubbing varied among seasons.
Seasons were defined as four equal time periods based on
the Julian calendar: spring, summer, winter, fall. We tabulated the number of visits and cheek rubbing events ineach season, after excluding seasons with \60 days ofmonitoring, and then log transformed each of the datasets
to meet the assumptions of the ANOVA.
To test whether the acquisition of puma scent was for
predation avoidance we tested for differences in the relative abundance of the four carnivores at community
scrapes. We calculated the relative abundance (RA) of
pumas, coyotes, bobcats, and gray foxes at each community scrape as
RA ¼ n  100=D;
where n is the total number of visits recorded for eachspecies and D is the number of days the community scrape
was monitored. We used an ANOVA to test for differencesin abundance, using relative abundance as the dependent
variable and species as the independent variable, after firstlog transforming RA to meet the assumptions of the123

J Ethol (2017) 35:13–19

ANOVA. We then performed post hoc Tukey tests todetermine where significant differences existed (Sokal andRohlf 1987).

Results
Overview
We documented gray foxes exhibiting cheek rubbing during
92 out of 903 (10.2 %) visits across our 4 years of observations. When exhibiting cheek rubbing, gray foxes performed a mean of 3.9 (±0.3 SE) back and forth movements,
over a mean duration of 11.4 (±1.1 SE) s. The duration ofvisits when exhibiting cheek rubbing was 37.9 (±2.2) s,significantly longer than the 15.2 (±0.6) s for visits when notexhibiting cheek rubbing (t821 = 10.90, p \ 0.0001).
Gray foxes exhibited olfactory investigation at 100 % ofvisits that included cheek rubbing, significantly more frequently than the 65.2 % at visits that did not include cheekrubbing (v21 ¼ 31:87; p \ 0.0001). Gray foxes depositedurine scent marks during 72.5 % of the visits when they
exhibited cheek rubbing, significantly more frequently thanthe 34.4 % of visits that did not include cheek rubbing(v21 ¼ 33:95; p \ 0.0001). There appeared to be a sequenceof events when cheek rubbing was involved, whereby thefox first investigated the puma’s individual scrape, followedby cheek rubbing, then sometimes urination on or near thepuma individual scrape (Fig. 3, http://www.momo-p.com/
showdetail-e.php?movieid=momo160812uc02a).
Gray foxes performed cheek rubbing on the ground(n = 12), a bobcat individual scrape (n = 1), and a shrub(n = 1), as well as on puma individual scrapes (n = 78)(Fig. 4). Across all documented cheek rubbing events, grayfoxes performed cheek rubbing on puma individual scrapes
84.7 % of the time, significantly more frequently than onother objects (v23 ¼ 141:53; p \ 0.0001), and significantly
more than would be predicted by chance (v21 ¼ 23:32;
p \ 0.0001).
Gray fox cheek rubbing in relation to recent visits
by other gray foxes or pumas
The exhibition of cheek rubbing was negatively related to
how recently a gray fox had visited (z821 = 2.28, p = 0.02)(Fig. 5a). Visits where gray foxes exhibited cheek rubbing
were a mean 13.4 (±1.7 SE) days since a fox visited, while
visits where they did not exhibit cheek rubbing were amean of 11.3 (±0.6) days since a fox visited. The exhibition of cheek rubbing by foxes was positively related to
how recently a puma had visited (z817 = 6.52, p \ 0.0001)(Fig. 5b). Visits where gray foxes exhibited cheek rubbing
were a mean 8.0 (±1.4 SE) days since a puma visited,J Ethol (2017) 35:13–19

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Fig. 3 A video showing a typical sequence of events when cheekrubbing was exhibited. The fox first investigates the puma’s
individual scrape, follows this by cheek rubbing, and then sometimes
urinates on or near the puma individual scrape

Fig. 5 The relationship between cheek rubbing and recent visits bygray foxes (a) and pumas (b). Visits are scaled to double at each timeinterval to limit the size of the figure

Fig. 4 Percentage of objects gray foxes performed cheek rubbing on
different substrates (n = 92 cheek rubbing events)

while visits where they did not exhibit cheek rubbing werea mean of 20.5 (±0.7) days since a puma visited. The
outlier visit that was 80? days since a puma visited was theinstance of a gray fox cheek rubbing on the shrub.

(F3,100 = 84.18 p \ 0.0001). Both coyotes and bobcats
were less abundant than pumas (pcoyote \ 0.0001, pbobcat = 0.0014). Coyotes were also less abundant than grayfoxes (p \ 0.0001), while bobcats were not significantly so(p = 0.1686). Gray foxes and pumas were not significantly
different in abundance (p = 0.3143).

Discussion

Seasonality and relative frequency of predator visits

Is cheek rubbing by gray foxes for depositingor accumulating scent?

We did not find variation among seasons for either visitation (F3,201 = 1.219, p = 0.3) or cheek rubbing(F3,201 = 0.987, p = 0.4) by gray foxes. Visitation ranged
from 3.11 (±0.56 SE) visits in autumn to 3.77 (±0.77)
visits in winter. Cheek rubbing ranged from occurring in
0.24 (±0.12) visits in summer to occurring in 0.59 (±0.19)
visits in spring.
In testing for predation avoidance, we recorded 1188
visits by pumas (RA = 19.97), 22 visits by coyotes(RA = 0.48), 446 visits by bobcats (RA = 9.51), and 903
visits by gray foxes (RA = 18.19). There was a clear difference in the relative abundance of the four species

Our results suggest that the adaptive significance behindgray fox cheek rubbing behavior is to acquire scent frompuma individual scrapes. Because most scent marking isdirected at conspecifics (Roper et al. 1993; Bel et al. 1999;
King and Gurnell 2007; Allen et al. 2015a), it was surprising that cheek rubbing by gray foxes had a significant
negative relationship with how recently a gray fox had
visited. Instead, our results suggest that gray foxes seek out
puma community scrapes, and perform cheek rubbing atthese areas disproportionately on puma individual scrapes.
More specifically, 85 % of cheek rubbing events were
performed on puma individual scrapes, and cheek rubbing

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had a significant positive relationship to how recently apuma had created the individual scrape. Species are known
to use the vocal communications of other species for theirbenefit (Hughes et al. 2012; Magrath et al. 2015), but this is
the first documentation of a species applying the scent fromanother species onto themselves for their own benefit.
Gray foxes exhibited selection of puma individual scrapes
for the performance of cheek rubbing behavior, but mammals often use different forms of scent marking to provide
different stimuli (Ralls 1971), and there may be otherinstances when gray foxes use cheek rubbing to deposit scentin order to communicate with conspecifics. Also, our study
was focused on puma community scrapes; if we had recordedgray fox cheek rubbing behavior in other areas, we might
have found a higher rate of cheek rubbing on other objects.
The next leading object for cheek rubbing after puma individual scrapes was the ground; however, the ground may
have been over-represented, as we likely did not document or
confirm every previous puma visit or individual scrape, andsome instances we attributed to marking on the ground had
the visual characteristics of a puma individual scrape. There
are many potential reasons for cheek rubbing (e.g., Goslingand McKay 1990), and future research could be performed todetermine whether this is the only use of gray fox cheekrubbing or whether they perform cheek rubbing for otherpurposes and on other objects.
Is cheek rubbing by gray foxes for mate choiceor predator avoidance?
Cascading patterns in the abundance of carnivores, particularly among canines, are known to occur (e.g., Levi andWilmers 2012). Wang et al. (2015) found a site-specific cascading pattern in the activity patterns of pumas, coyotes andgray foxes, while Allen et al. (2015b) found a cascading pattern in the feeding of carnivores at puma kills. We found asimilar cascading pattern in the relative abundance of carnivores at puma community scrapes. Cheek rubbing may be a
behavioral response used by gray foxes to deter or escapepredation from coyotes and bobcats, as smelling like a large
carnivore may deter predation events by meso carnivores longenough for the gray fox to escape (e.g., Garvey et al. 2016).
This may be a particular advantage for gray foxes, as theirmain predation avoidance technique is tree climbing (Fritzell
and Haroldson 1982) (Fig. 6, http://www.momo-p.com/
showdetail-e.php?movieid=momo160812uc03a), and hesitation by a larger predator may give the gray fox time to escape
into a tree. The giving up densities (GUP) of prey increase in
response to predator scent (Bytheway et al. 2013), and thesame may be true of carnivores avoiding larger carnivores.
This behavior is likely to be most beneficial against larger
predators that are smell-dominant, such as coyotes, and we
found that gray foxes visited community scrapes 38 times

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Fig. 6 A video of a gray fox using its tree climbing ability to escapepredation by a bobcat

more frequently than coyotes, suggesting that coyotes avoid
community scrapes and puma scent, while gray foxes do not.
These findings suggest our hypothesis of cheek rubbing being
for predation avoidance is worth follow-up work with studies
that can directly test the success of such a tactic.
The lack of seasonality in cheek rubbing behavior and thenegative relationship with how recently a gray fox had visited
suggest that the acquisition of puma scent was not for mate
attraction. The main purposes of scent marking are thought tobe for intraspecific territorial marking (Roper et al. 1993; Kingand Gurnell 2007) and mate attraction (Bel et al. 1999; Allenet al. 2015a). The cheek rubbing performed by gray foxes on
puma individual scrapes seems to deviate from this norm, as it
appears the gray foxes are accumulating puma scent rather
than depositing their own. The lack of seasonality may in partbe because gray foxes consort in pairs throughout the year
(Fritzell and Haroldson 1982). For example, scent marking isthought to strengthen pair bonds, and cheek rubbing may also
serve this purpose. We also did not know the sexes of the foxes
performing the cheek rubbing, and this could be a confounding factor, as cheek rubbing is thought to be more prevalent inmale mammals (Gosling and McKay 1990). Performing thesetests with tagged individuals may shed further light on thepattern, both in discerning patterns for individuals, as well as
different sexes.

Conclusions
The mechanisms and importance of scent marking forinterspecific interactions are currently underrepresented in
the literature. Scent marking is an integral part of the
behavioral ecology of many mammals (Mellen 1993;
Rostain et al. 2004; Allen et al. 2016), but we have little
knowledge of how interspecific scent marking functions.
Previous research on interspecific scent marking is sparse,
but generally animals are thought to investigate otherJ Ethol (2017) 35:13–19

species’ scent to gain information (Rostain et al. 2004; Liet al. 2013) or avoid predation (Apfelbach et al. 2005;
Bytheway et al. 2013). Interspecific vocal communications
are used to gain information, find food sources, and avoid
predators (Hughes et al. 2012; Magrath et al. 2015), andinterspecific use of scent marks may be used for similarfunctions. The significance of our findings suggest thatinterspecific scent marking is a potentially rich area of
research and an area in need of further research.
Gray foxes cheek rubbing on puma individual scrapes
appears to be part of a complex behavioral cascade where asmall carnivore acquires scent from a large carnivore topotentially dissuade competition and predation from dominant meso predators. This is the first published study of asubordinate species using the scent of a dominant species
to communicate with heterospecifics, and our study suggests that interspecific interactions through scent marking
may have important outcomes for community ecology.
Interspecific vocal communication can be a mechanismthat directly influences the distribution and abundance ofspecies (Goodale et al. 2010), and this behavioral cascadesuggests that scent marking could also be a mechanism that
impacts the distribution and abundance of species.
Acknowledgments Funding was provided by NSF Grants 0963022
and 1255913, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the
University of California at Santa Cruz. We thank P. Houghtaling, Y.
Shakeri, R. Peterson, and numerous technicians and volunteers fortheir help on the project.

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