The role of odour in the discrimination of conspecifics by pipistrelle bats

Abstract

Dual-choice experiments were devised to test whether pipistrelle bats, Pipistrellus pipistrellus, can discriminate between odours of a limited number of conspecifics from both their own colony and from a different one. All of five females from one colony learnt to discriminate between the odours of colony-mates of the same sex and reproductive condition with 75% certainty after an average of 5 days (20 choices per day). Ten bats (five from each of two colonies) chose odours of females from their own colony in preference to those of females from a second colony on the first series of 20 trials. These experiments demonstrated the ability of pipistrelles to recognize familiar individuals by scent cues and also to discriminate between familiar versus unfamiliar conspecific odours.