Food storage

About

Hoarding or caching in animal behavior is the storage of food in locations hidden from the sight of both conspecifics (animals of the same or closely related species) and members of other species. Most commonly, the function of hoarding or caching is to store food in times of surplus for times when food is less plentiful. However, there is evidence that some amount of caching or hoarding is done in order to ripen the food, called ripening caching. The term hoarding is most typically used for rodents, whereas caching is more commonly used in reference to birds, but the behaviors in both animal groups are quite similar.

Hoarding is done either on a long-term basis – cached on a seasonal cycle, with food to be consumed months down the line – or on a short term basis, in which case the food will be consumed over a period of one or several days.

Some common animals that cache their food are rodents such as hamsters and squirrels, and many different bird species, such as rooks and woodpeckers. The Western Scrub Jay is noted for its particular skill at caching. There are two types of caching behavior: larder-hoarding, where a species creates a few large caches which it often defends, and scatter-hoarding, where a species will create multiple caches, often with each individual food item stored in a unique place. Both types of caching have their advantage.

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