Evidence for unfamiliar kin recognition in vampire bats

摘要: Kin discrimination allows organisms to preferentially cooperate with kin, reduce kin competition, and avoid inbreeding. In vertebrates, often occurs through prior association. There is less evidence for recognition of unfamiliar kin. Here, we present the first in bats. We captured female vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) from a single roost, allowed them breed captivity 22 months, then released 17 wild-caught females six captive-born daughters back into same wild roost. used custom-built proximity sensors track free-ranging social encounters among previously captive 27 tagged control Using microsatellite-based relatedness estimates, found that associated related bats, Closer analyses showed these unfamiliar-kin-biased associations were not caused by mothers or other familiar close because kinship bias was evident even when those nearby. This striking warrants further investigation provides new hypotheses how cooperative relationships might be driven synergistically both experience phenotypic similarity.