maintained body mass at the level of 15% weight loss. Initial findings
indicated that these species would stop eating if water was withdrawn
completely for a period. Thus for this study,waterwas gradually reduced
from the ad libitum intake over a period of approximately one month
until the desired weight change had occurred. Details of this procedure
have been previously reported (Taylor, 1968b; Maloiy and Taylor, 1971).
Food intake and digestibility during dehydration were measured for an
8–14 day period after the desired 15% level of dehydration had been
established, for both the constant (22 °C) and for the 12-hour cyclic
temperature (22 °C and 40 °C) periods.
Samples of food offered, and faeces produced were collected daily,
weighed and frozen. A sample of the food and faeceswas then dried to
constant weight in a forced air-oven at 105 °C.
2.3. Statistical analysis
Analysis of variance and Duncan's Multiple range test were used to
determine significant differences (Zar, 1999; Crawley 2002). The level
of statistical significant differencewas set at Pb0.05. Data are reported
as mean±the standard error of the mean (SEM).