Liang Jie, Yang Jian, Xie Huanwang, Peng Xingwen, He Xiangyang, Sun Yunxiao, Zhang Libiao
Guangdong Key Laboratory of Animal Conservation and Resource Utilization, Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization Guangdong Institute of Applied Biological Resources Guangzhou China.
Ecol Evol. 2019 Jun 25;9(14):8113-8118. doi: 10.1002/ece3.5377. eCollection 2019 Jul.
Grooming is a common behavior of some mammals. Previous studies have shown that grooming is a means by which animals clean themselves, remove ectoparasites, and lower their body temperature. It is also involved in olfactory communication. Bats belong to the order Chiroptera and, like most mammals, are the natural host of many ectoparasites. Bat grooming, including licking and scratching, is one of the ways to reduce the adverse effects caused by ectoparasites. Bat grooming may also be induced by exogenous odor. In this study, we used lesser flat-headed bats () to test the hypothesis that exogenous odor affects the self-grooming behavior of bats. Results showed that external odor from distantly related species caused lesser flat-headed bats to spend more time in self-grooming. Lesser flat-headed bats that received odor from humans spent the longest time in self-grooming, followed by those that received odor from a different species of bats (). Lesser flat-headed bats that received odor form the same species of bats, either from the same or a different colony, spent the least amount of time in self-grooming. These results suggest that bats can recognize conspecific and heterospecific through body scent.
梳理毛发是一些哺乳动物的常见行为。先前的研究表明，梳理毛发是动物清洁自身、去除体表寄生虫并降低体温的一种方式。它还参与嗅觉交流。蝙蝠属于翼手目，与大多数哺乳动物一样，是许多体表寄生虫的天然宿主。蝙蝠梳理毛发，包括舔舐和抓挠，是减少体表寄生虫造成的不利影响的方法之一。蝙蝠梳理毛发也可能由外源气味诱发。在本研究中，我们使用扁颅蝠来检验外源气味影响蝙蝠自我梳理行为这一假设。结果表明，来自远缘物种的外源气味使扁颅蝠在自我梳理上花费更多时间。接受人类气味的扁颅蝠在自我梳理上花费的时间最长，其次是接受来自不同种类蝙蝠气味的扁颅蝠。接受来自同一种类蝙蝠（无论是来自同一个还是不同群体）气味的扁颅蝠在自我梳理上花费的时间最少。这些结果表明，蝙蝠可以通过身体气味识别同种和异种个体。
