KIN RECOGNITION IN GOLDEN-HAMSTERS - EVIDENCE FOR KINSHIP ODORS

Differential treatment of kin and non-kin has been well documented, bu t much remains unclear about how kin are recognized. If kin are recogn ized by a phenotype-matching mechanism, there must be a correlation be tween genetic relatedness and the similarity of cues used for recognit ion. A habituation technique was used with golden hamsters, Mesocricet us auratus, to investigate the relative similarity of the odour qualit y of flank gland secretions from siblings and unrelated individuals. H amsters discriminated between the odours of their own, same-sex siblin gs but also treated these odours as similar compared to odours of non- siblings (experiment 1). They did not discriminate between the flank g land odours of unfamiliar siblings from another family (experiment 2). They also did not discriminate between the flank gland odours of unfa miliar, paternal half-siblings from another family (experiment 3). The se results indicate that subjects perceived odours from genetically si milar individuals as similar and provide evidence for kinship odour cu es. The discrimination between the flank gland odours of subjects' own siblings, however, indicates that hamsters learn the subtle differenc es between the odours of their close kin, probably through experience with siblings in the nest. When only volatile components from flank gl and secretions were available to subjects (experiment 4), they again d iscriminated between the odours of their own siblings, suggesting that the volatile components from the flank gland secretion were sufficien t for recognition of individual litter-mates. (C) 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.