Galápagos Sea Lion (Zalophus wollekaeki) Play Behaviors on San Cristóbal Island, Ecuador

<p>My thesis concerns observations of play activities from videotapes of Galápagos sea lions on San Cristóbal Island from mid-summer of 2008. I begin with a discussion of ideas about play and types of play, elaborate the conceptual system of projects and routines in play, and provide a brief description of sea lion taxonomy and forms of play specific to Galápagos sea lions. Observing approximately 713 minutes of videotapes, I coded approximately 161.5 minutes of play projects and routines. Of the 713 minutes, 241 minutes were used in training, and 472 were coded independently by two coders for reliability. The two coders observed approximately 141 minutes of play. For the presence of particular projects and routines at approximately the same time, reliability was 100%; for agreement about the temporal extent of projects and routines, reliability was 96% (though some infrequent projects and routines had low agreement); overall, Cohen’s kappa was .97. I observed five solitary play projects (lolling, twirling, object play, jumping, and surfing), and four social play routines (playfighting, playchasing, playwrestling, and king of the hill—a form of playful boundary defense). Of these, lolling and twirling had not been previously coded as play in the scientific literature. The most common play activities were lolling and playfighting. Social object play, sexual play, and boundary defense seem likely to be present in all sea lion species, but I observed no evidence of the first two, and only one variant of boundary defense (king of the hill), in the videotaped Galápagos sea lions. </p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

Eastern Kentucky University

Year

2016

Author dc:creator

• Kincer, Mary Ann

• play
• sea lions
• Behavior and Ethology
• Zoology

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2016 Mary Ann Kincer

Repository record dc:identifier

https://encompass.eku.edu/etd/387

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:encompass.eku.edu:etd-1385