Data from: The role of visual cues in mother–pup reunions in a colonially breeding mammal

Parental care is an important factor influencing offspring survival and adult reproductive success in many vertebrates. Parent-offspring recognition ensures care is only directed to filial young, avoiding the costs of misallocated resource transfer. It is essential in colonial mammal species, such as otariids (fur seals and sea lions), in which repeated mother-offspring separations increase the risk of misdirecting maternal effort. Identification of otariid pups by mothers is known to be multimodal, yet the role of visual cues in this process remains uncertain. We used 3-dimensional visual models to investigate the importance of visual cues in maternal recognition of pups in Australian sea lions (Neophoca cinerea). We showed that the colour pattern of pup pelage in the absence of any other sensory cues served to attract the attention of females and prompt investigation. Furthermore, females were capable of accurately distinguishing between models imitating the age-class of their own pup and those resembling older or younger age-classes. Our results suggest that visual cues facilitate age-class discrimination of pups by females and so are likely to play an important role in mother-pup reunions and recognition in otariid species.

双亲抚育是影响多数脊椎动物后代存活率与成体繁殖成功率的关键因素。亲子识别可确保抚育行为仅指向子代幼崽，规避资源错配带来的成本损耗。该机制在群居哺乳动物类群中尤为必要，例如海狮科（otariids，即海狗与海狮），这类物种中母子频繁分离会提升母兽抚育行为错配的风险。已知母兽对海狮科幼崽的识别属于多模态过程，但视觉线索在其中的作用仍不明确。本研究借助三维视觉模型，探究了视觉线索在澳洲海狮（Neophoca cinerea）母兽幼崽识别中的重要性。实验结果显示，在排除其他所有感官线索的前提下，幼崽被毛的颜色图案足以吸引雌性个体的注意力并促使其开展探查。此外，雌性个体能够精准区分模拟自身幼崽年龄组的模型，与模拟更年长或更年幼年龄组的模型。本研究结果表明，视觉线索可辅助雌性个体完成幼崽年龄组辨别，因此其在海狮科物种的母子团聚与亲子识别过程中大概率发挥着重要作用。