Food-Caching Western Scrub-Jays Keep Track of Who Was Watching When

Abstract

Western scrub-jays ( Aphelocoma californica ) hide food caches for future consumption, steal others' caches, and engage in tactics to minimize the chance that their own caches will be stolen. We show that scrub-jays remember which individual watched them during particular caching events and alter their recaching behavior accordingly. We found no evidence to suggest that a storer's use of cache protection tactics is cued by the observer's behavior.