Male flank-gland secretion

Vasilieva, N. Y. (1994) Social cues influencing reproductive characteristics in Golden hamsters the role of male flank gland secretion, vaginal discharge and litter composition. Advances in the Biosciences 93, 317-323. 

Figure 1. The mean ( SEM) time that males spent investigating the scents from familiar females (black bars) and the clean side of the plate (open bars) the scent was vaginal secretion during habituation trials (black bars) and flank gland secretion on the test trial (diagonally striped bars). In the test trials of (a), males investigated the flank scent from the same female that had provided the vaginal secretion, whereas in (b) they investigated the flank secretion of a different, familiar female.

Figure 1. Mean time ( SE) male hamsters spent investigating odors of other males in habituation-discrimination tests. Subjects were presented with flank gland secretion from one male (Sib 1, white bars) on four trials and were then tested for discrimination with the odor from another male from the same family (Sib 2, hatched bars) on the first test trial on the second test trial subjects were tested with the odor of a male from a different family (Non-sib, black bars). (A) Subjects tested with odors from their own brothers. (B) subjects tested with odors from brothers from another family. (C) subjects tested with odors from their foster brothers. Data in part A and B is from Todrank, et al., 1998.

Figure 2. Mean number ( SE) of scent marks by male and female hamsters in response to flank gland secretion from kin and non-kin. (A) Flank marks of males and females to same-sex odors and vaginal marks of females to odors of males. (B) Vaginal marks of females to flank odors of males. (Non-Br - non-brother Non-Sis - non-sister graph after data in Heth, Todrank Johnston, 1998).

---