Visual marking in mammals first proved by manipulations of brown bear tree debarking

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Vincenzo Penteriani, Enrique González-Bernardo, Alfonso Hartasánchez, Héctor Ruiz-Villar, Ana Morales-González, Andrés Ordiz, Giulia Bombieri, Juan Diaz García, David Cañedo, Chiara Bettega, María Del Mar Delgado
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Portfolio 2021
• Subjects: Medicine; R; Science; Q; Ursus arctos
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88472-5; https://doaj.org/article/9ed7020616df4a859a0159e8e5e15710

Abstract The rather limited human ability to understand animal vision and visual signalling has frequently clouded our expectations concerning the visual abilities of other animals. But there are multiple reasons to suspect that visual signalling is more widely employed by animals than previously thought. Because visibility of visual marks depends on the background in which they are seen, species spending most of their time living in dark conditions (e.g., in forests and/or having crepuscular and nocturnal habits) may rely on bright signals to enhance visual display. Here, as a result of experimental manipulations, we present, for the first time ever, evidence supporting the use of a new channel of intraspecific communication by a mammal species, i.e., brown bear Ursus arctos adult males relying on visual marks during mating. Bear reactions to our manipulation suggest that visual signalling could represent a widely overlooked mechanism in mammal communication, which may be more broadly employed than was previously thought.