FEMALE GREAT TITS CAN IDENTIFY MATES BY SONG

During incubation female great tits, Parus major, will leave the nest when their mate sings outside the nestbox. Playback was used to simula te such 'calling out' behaviour when the mate was absent in order to i nvestigate whether females could distinguish between the song of their mate and songs from another male. The results were clear-cut, females were called out only by playback of the song of their mate, even when it was preceded by playback of another male. Demonstrations of female songbirds' ability to identify individuals such as mates are rare. Th is playback paradigm has the potential to be used in further investiga tions of the ability of females to identify songs. (C) 1996 The Associ ation for the Study of Animal Behaviour