The failure to demonstrate avoidance of ventral gland odors in male gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus)

The gerbil's ventral gland secretion has been assumed to play a role in territorial defense. The odor of this secretion should be avoided by males which have recently lost a dominance contest to a male which deposited the odor mark. In two experiments, male gerbils were randomly paired and dichotomized on the basis of dominance status. Twenty-four hours later, they were presented either with the odor of the dominant member of the pair in an otherwise clean open-field, or with the odors of the dominant, a novel male, the subject or an unscented area. There was no indication that the animals differentiated the dominants' odors from the others. In neither case was an odor avoided. Areas containing the odor of conspecifics were marked less frequently than the clean area. These data indicate that conspecific odors were detected, but there was no evidence of a differential response to any of the odors employed.