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Individual variation in exploration behavior can affect fitness, can be individually consistent and heritable, and is increasingly measured as an animal personality trait in novel environment tests. Exploration speed in novel environment tests is generally found to be positively correlated with movement distances in wild animals, but such studies tend to be limited to single measures of exploration and rarely investigate the role of other correlates of movement behavior in the wild. We show that scores of the speed of exploration of wild juvenile starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in novel environment tests are not correlated with either the maximum extent of, or the size of the most frequently used part of, their home range. By contrast, scores that reflect what parts of the novel environment were explored are correlated with the size of the most frequently used area and tend to be correlated with the maximum home range size. The latter relationship was stronger for individuals that were on average found in larger flocks and for individuals with less suitable foraging habitat in their range. We conclude that aspects of exploration other than its speed may be better predictors of exploration in the wild for some species. Moreover, our findings further illustrate that the association between animal personality traits such as exploration behavior and the behavioral ecology of wild animals may depend on the environmental or social context. These findings are discussed in the context of individual variation in the response to environmental variability. Key words: animal personality, behavioral syndromes, coping styles, environmental sensitivity, individual variation, kernel density, minimum convex polygon, movement. [Behav Ecol]

Triangular bell plates have been used as the poor man’s substitute for hand‐bells. As in other pitched percussion instruments, pitch identification largely depends on the harmonic relation between the most significant overtones. This work reports on experimental mode studies of a bell plate using electronic holographic interferometry and impact excited modal analysis. Experimental results are also compared with finite element mode calculations. The finite element calculations are in good agreement with the experimental data.

Preliminary results from mode studies in triangular aluminum bellplates using electronic holographic interferometry were reported at the 136th ASA meeting [Uwe J. Hansen, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 1767(A) (1998)]. Since then the TU Sydney co‐authors of this paper have performed finite element calculations with results which are remarkably congruent with the holographic data. The first 13 modes will be discussed and shown in holographic as well as FEM representation.