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Responses of Short-Nosed Fruit Bat, Cynopterus sphinx (Vahl 1797) Towards Distress Calls of their Conspecifics from Related and Unrelated Sites:Implications for Building a Social Relationship


Affiliations
1 Department of Zoology, The American College, Madurai 625 002, India
2 Department of Animal Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli 620 024, India
 

Distress calls emitted by bats signal their conspecifics either to warn them or inform them about the situations. Conspecifics may also get attracted towards distress calls as a behaviour of cooperative mobbing or just selfishly assessing the potential source of danger. The exact functions of distress calls in bats therefore vary to a great degree and are very hard to pinpoint. We conducted playback experiments to test the response of short-nosed fruit bat, Cynopterus sphinx towards the distress calls of their conspecifics from related and unrelated sites. Bats were attracted to their conspecifics from both related and unrelated sites and in one occasion towards fruit bat (Rousettus leschenaulti) of another genus within the same family. The response towards the opposite sex was significant in most of the playback trials and the reasons remain unclear. This symmetric response towards conspecifics from related and unrelated sites suggests the possibility of fruit bats building social relationships among unrelated individuals and probably between species.

Keywords

Chiroptera, Cynopterus sphinx, Conspecifics, Distress Calls, Social Relationship.
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  • Responses of Short-Nosed Fruit Bat, Cynopterus sphinx (Vahl 1797) Towards Distress Calls of their Conspecifics from Related and Unrelated Sites:Implications for Building a Social Relationship

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Authors

A. F. P. Allwin Mabes Raj
Department of Zoology, The American College, Madurai 625 002, India
K. Emmanuvel Rajan
Department of Animal Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli 620 024, India
H. Raghuram
Department of Zoology, The American College, Madurai 625 002, India

Abstract


Distress calls emitted by bats signal their conspecifics either to warn them or inform them about the situations. Conspecifics may also get attracted towards distress calls as a behaviour of cooperative mobbing or just selfishly assessing the potential source of danger. The exact functions of distress calls in bats therefore vary to a great degree and are very hard to pinpoint. We conducted playback experiments to test the response of short-nosed fruit bat, Cynopterus sphinx towards the distress calls of their conspecifics from related and unrelated sites. Bats were attracted to their conspecifics from both related and unrelated sites and in one occasion towards fruit bat (Rousettus leschenaulti) of another genus within the same family. The response towards the opposite sex was significant in most of the playback trials and the reasons remain unclear. This symmetric response towards conspecifics from related and unrelated sites suggests the possibility of fruit bats building social relationships among unrelated individuals and probably between species.

Keywords


Chiroptera, Cynopterus sphinx, Conspecifics, Distress Calls, Social Relationship.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv115%2Fi11%2F2150-2155