Dear enemy relationships in the subterranean rodent Ctenomys talarum: the role of memory of familiar odours

Abstract

Individual recognition is expected to enhance fitness by allowing animals to direct appropriate behaviours to specific individuals during interactions with conspecifics. Reduced aggression towards territorial neighbours (‘dear enemy phenomenon’) is based on the assumption that strangers lacking territories pose a greater threat than territory-holding neighbours. Based on the ability of the subterranean rodent Ctenomys talarum (tuco-tuco) to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar conspecific odours, I assessed whether males, the more aggressive sex, show dear enemy relationships and whether social experience with odour donors affects the memory of conspecific odours. Male–male contests in the laboratory were used to compare the aggressive behaviour of pairs of males. Familiar male tuco-tucos responded less aggressively during contests than unfamiliar males, providing evidence of the dear enemy relationship in C. talarum . Memory for familiar odours was affected by social experience since discrimination of known from novel odours lasted longer when males encountered each other in dyadic contests following familiarization with odours. Familiarity by odour cues would represent an important mechanism mediating neighbour recognition and territorial behaviour for tuco-tucos in the wild; intruders may represent a threat of great consequence for territory-holding individuals since they represent the potential loss of their burrow system and their priority of access to neighbouring females.