Self-anointing

Brockie, R. (1976) Self-anointing by wild hedgehogs, Erinaceus europaeus. Anim. Behav.24, 68-71. 

The rice rat, Rattus rattoides, from southern China also self-anoints, at least in the laboratory. Presented with filter paper carrying anal glandsecretion from the weasel Mustda sibirica, rice rats chewed the paper and rubbed the pieces against both of their flanks. Even laboratory-born naive rice rats anointed themselves in this fashion. Weasel or fox urine did not release anointing behavior (Xu etal, 1995). 

Capuchin monkeys (Cebusspp.) in Venezuela self-anoint with a benzoquinone-secreting millipede. Two of the compounds by themselves also release selfanointing. These are 2-methyl-l,4-benzoquinone and 2-methoxy-3-methyl-l,4-benzoquinone. These compounds repel mosquitoes (Valderrama et al, 2000 Weldon etciZ., 2003). 

Weldon, P. J., Aldrich, J. R., Klun, J. A., Oliver, J. E., and Debboun, M. (2003). Benzo-quinones from millipedes deter mosquitoes and elicit self-anointing in capuchin monkeys (Cehus spp.). Naturwissenschaften 90,301-304. 

Xu, Z., Stoddart, M., Ding, H., and Zhang, J. (1995). Self-anointing behavior in the rice-field rat, Rattus rattoides. Journal of Mammalogy 76,1238-1241. 

Strong olfactory stimuli often release the peculiar self-anointing behavior of hedgehogs and tenrecs, which was interpreted as a means of cleaning the oral cavity and the Jacobson s organ of the olfactory stimulant (Poduschka and Firbas, 1968 Poduschka, 1977a but c.f., Brodie,... 

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