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Psychological and Behavioural Principles and Problems

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Health and Welfare of Captive Reptiles

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Abstract

Psychological and behavioural attributes form the biological tools between a reptile and its environment, and are as important in life as any aspect of natural history. Behaviours such as limping, lethargy, and other signs are frequently used as indicators of physical injury and disease in reptiles. However, behavioural signs are less commonly interpreted to indicate or demonstrate psychological and ethological problems. For too long reptiles were, and sometimes still are, presumed relatively unsophisticated in their cognitive, psychological, and ethological development, and thus associated husbandry and welfare needs. Encouragingly, nowadays, major scientific interest exists in understanding reptilian mental and behavioural complexities related to their well-being in captivity. Psychological stress and behavioural frustration seem common even in the most well-considered artificial environments, and there is a range of abnormal behavioural states associated with captive reptiles. Assessments of captive reptiles should question constantly all behavioural activities, which in normal animals should not only be unmodified reflections of those in nature, but also should be seen in a holistic context. This chapter aims to provide readers with guidance and relevant background for observing and interpreting psychological and behavioural problems in all scenarios affecting captive reptiles.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note: Further specific publications include (in date order): Carpenter and Ferguson (1977); Burghardt (1988); Greenberg et al. (1989); Morton et al. (1990); Lance (1990); Warwick (1990a, 1990b); Frye (1991a); Burghardt (1991); Bowers and Burghardt (1992); Lance (1992); Ford (1992); Greenberg (1992); Pough (1992); Kreger (1993a, 1993b); Kreger and Mench (1993); Chiszar et al. (1993); Mench (1998); King and Green (1999); Scott and Warwick (2002); Moore and Jessop (2003); Burghardt (2005); Garner (2005); Homer (2006); Morgan and Tromberg (2007); Pianka et al. (2004); Manrod et al. (2008); Wilkinson et al. 2010a, 2010b; Mendyk and Horn (2011); Leal and Powell (2012); Phillips et al. (2012); Wilkinson and Huber (2012); Arbuckle (2013); Burghardt (2013); Arena et al. (2013); Doody et al. (2013); Kaleta (2013); Warwick et al. (2013); Ballen et al. (2014); Rose et al. (2014); Warwick (2014); Mancera et al. (2014); Martinez-Silvestre (2014); Burghardt (2015); Webster (2016); Bashaw et al. (2016); Mellor and Webster (2014); Januszczak et al. (2016); Mellor (2016); Moszuti et al. (2017); Mancera et al. (2017a); Mendl et al. (2017); Siviter et al. (2017); Frohnwieser et al. (2018); Mason and Burn (2018); Mendyk (2018); Warwick et al. (2018a, 2018b); Whitehead (2018); Benn et al. (2019); Warwick et al. (2019); Brando and Burghardt (2019); Lambert et al. (2019); Spain et al. (2020).

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Acknowledgements

I should like to thank Catrina Steedman and David Chiszar for kindly commenting on the original 1995 text, and George Bates, Martin Whitehead, and the reviewers for commenting on this latest version. Any remaining bad ideas will be my own.

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    Clifford Warwick

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  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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Warwick, C. (2023). Psychological and Behavioural Principles and Problems. 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_8

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