Abstract
Possible functions of the ingestion of maternal anal excreta by juvenile rats were examined. No strong support was found for hypotheses suggesting that maternal excreta serves as a major transition diet from mother''s milk to solid food, that ingestion of maternal excreta influences pup diet selection at weaning, or that ingestion of maternal excreta is a necessary condition for inoculation of pups with enteric bacteria. Some support was found for the hypothesis that maternal excreta can serve as a short-term emergency food supply for rat pups after weaning. Pup ingestion of maternal anal excreta may not be a functionally meaningful unit of behavior in preweaning rats. Allocoprophagy may be one facet of a broader pattern of oral exploration in which functional significance resides.