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Light Perception - Results
3 RESULTS
3.1 Demonstrating Light Perception
In the two-choice test chamber, the mole-rats showed clear heliophobic behaviour towards
the halogen light stimulus and significantly preferred the dark box (= scotophilia) for nesting
(fig. A7; N = 20, Chi-square test: X 2
1 = 9.8, P = 0.002).
Number of choice
In the controls, the mole-rats did also nest in the circular centre around the inserted
smaller cylinder, designed actually to prevent them from nesting during the experiments.
However, animals showed a random choice between these three nesting possibilities both in
the dark/dark controls (N = 16, Chi-square test: X 2
2 = 3.5, P = 0.17) and in the white
light/white light controls (N = 16, Chi-square test: X 2
2 = 1.625, P = 0.44).
Mean temperatures did not differ between the lighted (23.83±0.76 °C, N = 8) and the
dark box (23.95±0.66 °C, N = 8; Paired t-test: t 7 = -0.63, P = 0.548).
20
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16
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8
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2
0
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dark vs. halogen light
dark vs. halogen 1 light
dark vs. 2daylight 3
(enucleated animals)
Fig. A7 Nesting choices of sighted and enucleated mole-rats under different light regimes.
Number of choices for nesting chambers that mole-rat pairs made in preference tests. Tests were
performed with sighted animals under darkness versus a halogen white light regime in a two-armed
maze (black/white) and under darkness versus natural daylight conditions in an eight-armed
maze(black/bold hatching); and with enucleated animals under darkness versus halogen light in a
two-armed maze (black/polka dots). Significance is indicated with two asterisks indicating a P-value
below 0.01.
ns
23