If humans use looks to attract people when they're in love, bats depend on odor for their sex appeal. Indeed, when falling in love, humans are found to pay attention to looks. A lot of non-human animals also opt for a sexual partner according to their appearance.
A Phys.org report indicates male birds may exhibit flashy fathers so they can attract females. On the other hand, Lionesses prefer lions with a thicker mane, while colorful male guppies that have large pots are attractive to most females.
However, senior Latin American postdoctoral fellow at Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Mariana Munoz-Romo, who's also a National Geographic explorer, has pioneered a study in understanding "the role of odor in bat mating behavior."
Other than their genitalia, most male and female bats look the same at first glance. Nevertheless, a detailed investigation during mating season discloses odor-producing glands or assemblies only in male bats.
'Odorous Dorsal Patch' Observed in Male Bats
Long interested in this understudied difference and observing long-nosed bats, also known as Leptonycteris curasoae in Venezuela, Munoz-Romo observed that male bats are exhibiting an "odorous dorsal patch" during the mating season, which consists of a mixture of urine, feces, saliva, or semen that appears to attract reproductive female bats.
Then, in Panama later on, Munoz-Romo closely examined the "perfumes" coming from smelly crusts that Trachops cirrhosis, male fringe-lipped bats are meticulously applying to their forearms in mating season.
Such studies deepened this National Geographic explorer's interest in odor, as well as its role in bat mating systems, as well as her belief that odor may be the secret of bats to selecting a mate in the dark.
Examining a Range of Mammalian Species
Studies across an array of mammalian species present that by simply "smelling a potential mate," one can analyze its "sex, age, sexual receptiveness, health, social status, membership in group and identity."
According to this said report, this is entirely personal information in one sniff, which suggests that smell may be an essential factor for mate and reproduction choice.
With Rachel Page, an STRI staff scientist and renowned bat ecologist at the Boston University, Thomas Kunz, Munoz-Romo thoroughly studied all published articles on this particular topic.
Together, they discovered reports of smell-producing structures in over 120 bat species from 15 different families of bats.
Such a finding represents almost 10 percent of all identified bat species and more than 70 percent of bat families. In addition, odors originate from very different parts of bats' bodies, from their heads and mouths to their genitalia or wings.
Not only are chemical indications potent and effective for communication in dark conditions, but they also hinder bats' ability too from flying.
Munoz-Romo also said they believe that such factors, 'nocturnality' and powered flight, incorporated with odor-producing glands that are typical across mammals, stimulated the development of a great diversity of the smelly displaying structures found in bats.
Even though study authors know quite a little about such structures, the new investigation of the subject opens up potential new avenues for bat studies. Additionally, there are possibly a lot more odor-related structures awaiting discovery.
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