132 Cheri A. Jones 



The purpose of this article is to report observations of feeding 

 behavior of wild and captive Podomys. Additionally, I performed 

 acorn preference tests and a supplemental feeding experiment to 

 determine whether local distributions were due to food supply. 



MATERIALS AND METHODS 



Field Studies — Florida mice were trapped on the Anderson-Cue 

 and Smith Lake sandhills on the Katharine Ordway Preserve-Swisher 

 Memorial Sanctuary in Putnam County, Florida. These xeric sandhills 

 are "high pine" communities dominated by longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) 

 and turkey oak (Q. laevis). Brand (1987), Eisenberg (1988), Franz 

 (1986, 1990), and Jones (1990) described the fauna of these sandhills. 

 Populations of Podomys occur on sandhills and old pastures on the 

 Ordway Preserve, where they are closely associated with burrows of 

 gopher tortoises. Cotton mice (Peromyscus gossypinus) and golden 

 mice (Ochrotomys nuttalli) inhabit lower, more mesic habitats on the 

 preserve. 



Each tortoise burrow on the Anderson-Cue and Smith Lake 

 sandhills was flagged and marked with a unique number. Florida 

 mice were caught in Sherman traps placed at the mouths of tortoise 

 burrows on both sandhills. Animals were released near the burrow 

 entrance so that I could observe escape responses and foraging 

 behavior (Jones 1990). I used standard mark-and-recapture techniques, 

 in which individuals were toe-clipped, sexed, and weighed. I calculated 

 minimum trappability [(number of captures - 2)/(possible captures - 

 2)] for animals captured three or more times (Hilborn et al. 1976). 



I used a breeding colony derived from animals captured at 

 Ashley Old Pasture and near Smith Lake to perform food preference 

 tests. Captive animals were housed in aquaria fitted with hardware- 

 cloth tops. The maintenance diet consisted of rodent chow (Wayne 

 Rodent Blox) and water provided ad libitum, supplemented with lettuce, 

 carrots, apples, strawberries, sunflower seeds, mixed bird seed, oatmeal, 

 mealworms, and crickets. 



Preference Tests — I performed preference tests to determine whether 

 acorns of turkey oaks (Q. laevis) were selected over acorns of other 

 species present on the Ordway Preserve. At least 24 hours before 

 beginning a test, a mouse was placed in an aquarium with clean 

 kitty litter, nesting material, water, and rat chow. To start a trial I 

 removed the chow and added three bowls, each containing five acorns 

 of a single species, at about 1900 hours. Each acorn was marked, 

 weighed, and measured, but no effort was made to ensure that all 

 acorns in a bowl were identical in size. I controlled for location 

 effects by shifting relative positions of the three types of acorns in 



