Data from: Individual recognition through olfactory - auditory matching in lemurs

Individual recognition can be facilitated by creating representations of familiar individuals, whereby information from signals in multiple sensory modalities become linked. Many vertebrate species use auditory–visual matching to recognize familiar conspecifics and heterospecifics, but we currently do not know whether representations of familiar individuals incorporate information from other modalities. Ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) are highly visual, but also communicate via scents and vocalizations. To investigate the role of olfactory signals in multisensory recognition, we tested whether lemurs can recognize familiar individuals through matching scents and vocalizations. We presented lemurs with female scents that were paired with the contact call either of the female whose scent was presented or of another familiar female from the same social group. When the scent and the vocalization came from the same individual versus from different individuals, females showed greater interest in the scents, and males showed greater interest in both the scents and the vocalizations, suggesting that lemurs can recognize familiar females via olfactory–auditory matching. Because identity signals in lemur scents and vocalizations are produced by different effectors and often encountered at different times (uncoupled in space and time), this matching suggests lemurs form multisensory representations through a newly recognized sensory integration underlying individual recognition.

个体识别可通过构建熟悉个体的表征得以实现，该过程会将多感官模态信号所携带的信息进行关联整合。诸多脊椎动物物种会借助听觉-视觉匹配来识别熟悉的同种与异种个体，但目前学界尚不明确熟悉个体的表征是否会纳入其他感官模态的信息。环尾狐猴（Lemur catta）具有高度发达的视觉系统，但同时也通过气味信号与发声进行交流。为探究嗅觉信号在多感官识别中的作用，本研究开展实验以验证环尾狐猴能否通过气味与发声的匹配来识别熟悉个体。我们向受试环尾狐猴呈现雌性个体的气味信号，并将其与两类联络叫声（contact call）进行配对：一类是对应气味供体雌性的联络叫声，另一类是同社会群体中另一只熟悉雌性的联络叫声。当气味与发声来自同一而非不同个体时，雌性环尾狐猴对气味信号表现出更高的关注度，雄性则对气味信号与发声均表现出更高的关注度，这表明环尾狐猴能够通过嗅觉-听觉匹配来识别熟悉的雌性个体。由于环尾狐猴的气味与发声中的身份信号由不同的效应器官产生，且通常在不同时段被感知（时空上相互分离），这种匹配能力表明环尾狐猴可通过一种新发现的、支撑个体识别的感官整合机制形成多感官表征。