Department of Integrative Biology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA.
PLoS One. 2009 Nov 10;4(11):e7781. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007781.
The Brazilian free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) is an exceptionally social and gregarious species of chiropteran known to roost in assemblages that can number in the millions. Chemical recognition of roostmates within these assemblages has not been extensively studied despite the fact that an ability to chemically recognize individuals could play an important role in forming and stabilizing complex suites of social interactions.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Individual bats were given a choice between three roosting pouches: one permeated with the scent of a group of roostmates, one permeated with the scent of non-roostmates, and a clean control. Subjects rejected non-roostmate pouches with greater frequency than roostmate pouches or blank control pouches. Also, bats chose to roost in the roostmate scented pouches more often than the non-roostmate or control pouches.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We demonstrated that T. brasiliensis has the ability to chemically recognize roostmates from non-roostmates and a preference for roosting in areas occupied by roostmates. It is important to investigate these behaviors because of their potential importance in colony dynamics and roost choice.
巴西游离尾蝠（Tadarida brasiliensis）是一种非常社会化和群居的翼手目动物，已知它们会在数百万只的群体中栖息。尽管在这些群体中，通过化学识别个体的能力可能在形成和稳定复杂的社会互动方面发挥重要作用，但对群体内的同栖者进行化学识别的能力并没有得到广泛研究。
方法/主要发现：将个体蝙蝠置于三个栖息袋之间进行选择：一个被一组同栖者的气味渗透，一个被非同栖者的气味渗透，一个是干净的对照。与同栖者的气味袋或空白对照袋相比，实验对象更频繁地拒绝非同栖者的气味袋。此外，蝙蝠更倾向于选择栖息在同栖者气味袋中，而不是非同栖者或对照袋中。
结论/意义：我们证明了 T. brasiliensis 具有从非同栖者中识别同栖者的化学能力，并且更喜欢在同栖者占据的区域栖息。研究这些行为很重要，因为它们可能对群体动态和栖息地选择具有重要意义。
