Territoriality male competition

Urban feral cats of both sexes sniff marks of sprayed urine more if the donor is a strange cat (from a different town) and respond least to the urine of a familiar cat. Since one male roams over the territories of several females, it is assumed that male-male competition has selected males that spray mark more and respond more strongly to urine marks (Natoli, 1985). 

If rivals are successfully chased from a territory the resident reduces the attraction of any scent marks deposited by those rivals with the addition of his own scent close to ( countermarking , e.g. house mice) or across ( overmarking , e.g. golden hamsters and meadow voles) those of the intruder (Johnston et al., 1994, 1997 Hurst and Rich, 1999 Hurst et al., 2001). The ability to ensure one s own scent marks are the most recent in the territory, by rapidly countermarking or overmarking all non-self marks, will signal competitive success as only males able to evict rivals could maintain such territorial signals. 

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