What kind of abnormal behavior is floof digging?

Minimum exam length, excluding heading information: ½ page + filled‐in Duncan‐Hughes
modelMaximum exam length, excluding heading information: 1.5 pages + filled‐in Duncan‐Hughes
model

Floofs are ambush predators that hunt blimp, a large wild ungulate. A single, large blimp can feed a floof
for several days, so wild floofs that kill large blimp do not have to hunt again for up to 5 days
afterwards . Floofs that kill medium or small blimps will need to hunt more often. When a wild floof
becomes really hungry, it will leave its den in search of blimp. The hunting floof looks for trails that have
been trodden down by a passing blimp herd. Once a floof has located a blimp trail, it will follow the trail,
sniffing the ground until it finds a pile of blimp scat. Near the pile of blimp scat, the floof will leave the
trail and seek out a concealed spot next to the trail from which the floof can hide and wait. Because
blimp typically use the same trail for several days, a pile of scat indicates that there is a good chance the
blimp herd will pass that way again.
When the blimp herd returns on that trail, the floof will typically remain hidden if small or medium
blimp pass by its concealed spot. As soon as a large blimp is close enough, however, the floof will launch
itself from its concealed spot directly at that blimp and will use its jaws to grab the blimp by the throat.
If the floof succeeds at grabbing the blimp by its throat, the floof will use its jaws to clamp down on the
trachea of the blimp and suffocate it. As soon as the blimp dies, the floof will drag the blimp back to the
floof’s den. At the den, the floof will eat the blimp using its teeth to tear off chunks of muscle that the
floof swallows whole. When the floof is full, it will cache the remainder of the blimp carcass by digging a
shallow hole near its den, placing the blimp carcass in the hole, and then hiding it with rocks that the
floof carries to the hole in its mouth. As long as there are blimp carcass remains in its cache, the floof
will not hunt.
On ranches, floofs are fed once daily and ranchers are careful to provide the floofs with sufficient
nutrition. In their efforts to make sure the floofs receive enough food, some ranchers will provide the
floofs with more meat than the floofs can consume in a single meal, knowing that floofs will still eat
surplus meat even if it is a few days old. On ranches where feeding surplus meat is a common practice,
some of the floofs would carry leftover meat close to their dens where they attempt to dig in the
concrete floors of their enclosures. These floofs will often dig in the concrete for hours, often sustaining
injuries to their paws.

Questions:
The following questions draw upon the lectures, reading and discussion material focused on foraging,
motivation, and stereotypic behavior. When answering the questions, unless you are instructed
otherwise, rely only on the facts provided to you in the background.
1a. For wild floof foraging behavior, fill in the blank Duncan‐Hughes model. Make sure to include all the
behaviors provided to you in the background that are appropriate for each box in the Duncan‐Hughes
model.
1b. From a caloric perspective, are the wild floof forage optimally? How do you know?
2. The following questions are about the floofs’ digging behavior.
a. From the background, provide two (2) indicators about the digging behavior described
above that identify it as an abnormal behavior.
b. What kind of abnormal behavior is floof digging? How do you know?
3. One of the ranchers whose floofs were digging in their enclosures decided to conduct an experiment
to understand why their floofs were performing so much digging. This rancher divided their floofs
into enclosures in two separate barns. In one barn, the floofs were fed only the quantity of meat
that they could completely consume in one day. For this barn, toward the end of the day, the
rancher also checked to make sure that no meat remained anywhere within the enclosure. If there
was some leftover meat, the rancher removed it. In the other barn, the floofs were fed surplus
meat. The rancher then compared the amount of digging performed by the floofs in each barn and
learned that floofs from the barn that received surplus meat performed more digging behavior than
the floofs that from the barn with no leftover meat.
Which of the following causes do the findings of the rancher support: sustained elicitation,
reinforcement, or CNS dysfunction? How do you know? [HINT: In order to answer this question, you
may find it helpful to fill in a D‐H model for yourself for why floofs dig.]

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