Male dingo urinary scents code for age class and wild dingoes respond to this information

Chemical information in canid urine has been implicated in territoriality and influences the spacing of individuals. We identified the key volatile organic compound (VOC) components in dingo (Canis lupus dingo) urine and investigated the potential role of scents in territorial spacing. VOC analysis, using headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), demonstrated that the information in fresh urine from adult male dingoes was sufficient to allow statistical classification into age categories. Discriminant function analyses demonstrated that the relative amounts or combinations of key VOCs from pre-prime (3-4 years), prime (5-9 years), and post-prime (≥10 years) males varied between these age categories, and that scents exposed to the environment for 4 (but not 33) days could still be classified to age categories. Further, a field experiment showed that dingoes spent less time in the vicinity of prime male dingo scents than other scents. Collectively, these results indicate tha..., , , # Data and code from: Male dingo urinary scents code for age class and wild dingoes respond to this information

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Citation of paper:

* Benjamin J J Walker, Mike Letnic, Martin P Bucknall, Lyn Watson, Neil R Jordan, Male dingo urinary scents code for age class and wild dingoes respond to this information, *Chemical Senses*, Volume 49, 2024, bjae004, [https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjae004](https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjae004)

DOI of data:

* [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m3d](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m3d)

## Description of the Data and file structure

The data contains chemical and bioassay information about 27 dingo scent marks and related ecological and biological information. The quarto file contains all the code used to analyse the data and generate the figures in the manuscript.

### Contents:

##### Excel Data File (Data\_Walker-et-al\_2024\_doi\_10.1093-chemse-bjae004.xlsx) => excel file containing the datasets which were used to analyse:

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