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Social Behaviour as a Challenge for Welfare

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Health and Welfare of Captive Reptiles

Abstract

In recent decades, husbandry techniques have generally improved to better facilitate the general health and welfare of captive reptiles, although many harmful practices remain. In the meantime, our understanding of the natural history, and thus requirements, of reptiles in nature has burgeoned. Compared to birds and mammals, reptiles have generally been dismissed as ‘non-social’ or ‘asocial’, lacking complex social behaviour, cognition, deception, emotions, and other behaviours and states. However, a recent review of social behaviour revealed that reptiles have the widest range of sociality of the vertebrates; reptiles are capable of complex social interactions including long-term monogamy, group living, delicate parental care, elaborate courtship, complex communication among sibling embryos and hatchlings to synchronise hatching and emergence, and grouping together to find food and shelter or avoid predators. Research into the captive welfare of reptiles has also lagged behind that for birds, and particularly for mammals. Although detrimental effects of some social interactions on captive reptiles are well known, beneficial effects are less obvious. Herein I review evidence for the effects of social behaviour on the welfare of captive reptiles, and suggest ways forward based on our current knowledge of social behaviour in reptiles in nature and in captivity.

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  1. University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL, USA

    J. Sean Doody

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  1. J. Sean Doody
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Correspondence to J. Sean Doody .

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  1. Emergent Disease Foundation, London, UK

    Clifford Warwick

  2. College of Science, Health, Engineering and Education, Academic Operations, Environmental and Conservation Sciences, Murdoch University, Mandurah, WA, Australia

    Phillip C. Arena

  3. Departments of Psychology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Gordon M. Burghardt

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Doody, J.S. (2023). Social Behaviour as a Challenge for Welfare. In: Warwick, C., Arena, P.C., Burghardt, G.M. (eds) Health and Welfare of Captive Reptiles. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86012-7_6

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