# Responses of coal tits (Periparus ater) to aversive food: insights into hoarding motivation and memory

## TL;DR

Coal tits hoard distasteful food like normal food, suggesting hoarding is automatic and not based on food value.

## Contribution

Shows hoarding behavior is not influenced by food palatability and may be separate from memory of food taste.

## Key findings

- Coal tits hoarded quinine-soaked peanuts as often as normal ones despite disliking their taste.
- They did not distinguish between the two types when retrieving food after 30 minutes.
- Hoarding decisions appear automatic and not based on food value or taste memory.

## Abstract

Food-hoarding birds hide many different food types, and are able to remember which kind of food they have hidden and where it was located. Usually, these different food types, although potentially of different value to the birds, are all palatable and would be consumed when encountered. We report on the responses of coal tits (Periparus ater) to peanut pieces that were made distasteful with quinine. While birds preferred eating normal peanut pieces over quinine-soaked ones, they were still very likely to hoard the distasteful nuts. Birds also did not distinguish between the two nut types when retrieving them after 30 min. These findings point towards the compulsive and automatic nature of hoarding decision, independent of the value of the food being hoarded. We discuss how high hoarding motivation may interact with eating motivation to drive natural patterns of hoarding intensity in the field. Our findings also suggest that the taste of hoarded food items is not part of the representation of the cache memory. We speculate that this may be because tasting the item and caching the item happens in separate locations and are therefore not associated with each other.