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

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.