Birds are known to be highly social and visual animals. Yet no specific visual feature has been identified to be responsible for individual recognition in birds. Here, using a differential looking paradigm across five experiments, we demonstrated that African penguins, Spheniscus demersus, spontaneously discriminated between life-size photographs of their monogamous, lifelong partner and a nonpartner colonymate using their ventral dot patterns. Our findings challenge the assumption of limited visual involvement in penguin communication and suggest a rather complex and flexible recognition process in these birds. The combination of our current results and previous findings, which showed cross-modal (visual/auditory) recognition in these animals, suggests that African penguins use their ventral dot patterns to individually recognize their colonymates. Our results provide the first evidence of a specific visual cue responsible for spontaneous individual recognition by a bird, and highlight the importance of considering all sensory modalities in the study of animal communication.

African penguins utilize their ventral dot patterns for individual recognition

Baciadonna L.
First
;
Terranova F.;Favaro L.
Last
2024-01-01

Abstract

Birds are known to be highly social and visual animals. Yet no specific visual feature has been identified to be responsible for individual recognition in birds. Here, using a differential looking paradigm across five experiments, we demonstrated that African penguins, Spheniscus demersus, spontaneously discriminated between life-size photographs of their monogamous, lifelong partner and a nonpartner colonymate using their ventral dot patterns. Our findings challenge the assumption of limited visual involvement in penguin communication and suggest a rather complex and flexible recognition process in these birds. The combination of our current results and previous findings, which showed cross-modal (visual/auditory) recognition in these animals, suggests that African penguins use their ventral dot patterns to individually recognize their colonymates. Our results provide the first evidence of a specific visual cue responsible for spontaneous individual recognition by a bird, and highlight the importance of considering all sensory modalities in the study of animal communication.
2024
207
13
21
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347223002579#:~:text=Penguins rely strongly on their,recognition system in African penguins.
identity cue, individual recognition, multimodal communication, plumage, seabird, visual recognition
Baciadonna L.; Solvi C.; Terranova F.; Godi C.; Pilenga C.; Favaro L.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/1944251
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