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Vocal Recognition In Mexican Free-Tailed Bats: Do Pups Recognize Mothers?, Jonathan Balcombe, Gary F. Mccracken
Vocal Recognition In Mexican Free-Tailed Bats: Do Pups Recognize Mothers?, Jonathan Balcombe, Gary F. Mccracken
Jonathan Balcombe, PhD
Mother Mexican free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana, produce 'directive' calls while searching for pups inside cave maternity roosts. These calls consist of highly repetitive pulses of sound uttered in rapid sequence. Calls are sufficiently intense that they are perceptible above the substantial background noise within roosts at distances of at least 1m. Calls are stereotyped within individuals, and statistically discriminable between individuals. These characteristics are expected for vocalizations that function for mother-pup reunions, and are shared with directive calls described previously in other bats. Mother T. b. mexicana directive calls are statistically no less discriminable than are the isolation calls …
Vocal Recognition Of Pups By Mother Mexican Free-Tailed Bats, Tadarida Brasiliensis Mexicana, Jonathan P. Balcombe
Vocal Recognition Of Pups By Mother Mexican Free-Tailed Bats, Tadarida Brasiliensis Mexicana, Jonathan P. Balcombe
Jonathan Balcombe, PhD
The ability of Mexican free-tailed bat mothers and pups to recognize vocalizations of their presumptive kin (pup isolation calls and mother echolocation calls, respectively) was tested using playbacks of recorded calls. Captive individuals were presented with calls of two bats, one presumptive kin and the other a stranger, from opposite sides of a circular wire arena. Response was determined by amount of time spent on each side of the arena, time spent in contact with a cloth bat model in front of each speaker, and number of separate contacts with each model. For the latter two measures, mothers showed a …