Mother Japanese house bats show stronger heart rate increases to biological pup calls than to non-family pup calls
- 1Neuroethology and Bioengineering Laboratory, Graduate School of Life Sciences and Technology, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe, Kyoto, Japan
- 2Kuroda Laboratory, School of Life Science and Technology, Institute of Science Tokyo, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
Abstract
Maternal care is essential for offspring survival in mammals, especially in colonial species where mothers must recognize their own pups. In the Japanese house bat, Pipistrellus abramus, mothers identify their pups using acoustic cues, particularly isolation calls (ICs) produced by newborns. However, the psycho-physiological mechanisms underlying such recognition remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated maternal emotional responses to pup calls by measuring heart rate (HR) changes during controlled playback experiments. We recorded ICs from 2-day-old pups and echolocation calls (ECs) from 30-day-old pups, then presented these sounds to mothers after the early nursing period. HR significantly increased in response to calls from mothers’ own pups—both ICs and ECs—but not to calls from non-family pups. Among all stimuli, ECs from their own older pups evoked the largest HR increase, indicating heightened physiological arousal and sustained maternal responsiveness despite developmental changes in call structure. Unexpectedly, ECs from an unfamiliar adult also induced HR elevation, suggesting that elevated HR can also be triggered by other salient social cues. These findings demonstrate that P. abramus mothers exhibit enhanced physiological responsiveness to their own pups’ vocalizations, and that HR serves as a sensitive index for evaluating arousal levels and social auditory processing based on dynamic acoustic information. Although HR alone cannot separate positive from negative emotional valence, these results highlight the utility of HR for monitoring physiological arousal associated with socially relevant acoustic stimuli in bats.
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BibTeX
@article{yoshinohashizawa2026mother,
title = {{Mother Japanese house bats show stronger heart rate increases to biological pup calls than to non-family pup calls}},
author = {Kazuki Yoshino-Hashizawa and Kazuki Yoshino-Hashizawa and Midori Hiragochi and Kohta I. Kobayasi and Shizuko Hiryu},
journal = {Frontiers in Ethology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fetho.2026.1891633},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fetho.2026.1891633},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Mother Japanese house bats show stronger heart rate increases to biological pup calls than to non-family pup calls
AU - Kazuki Yoshino-Hashizawa
AU - Kazuki Yoshino-Hashizawa
AU - Midori Hiragochi
AU - Kohta I. Kobayasi
AU - Shizuko Hiryu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
JO - Frontiers in Ethology
DO - 10.3389/fetho.2026.1891633
UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/fetho.2026.1891633
AB - Maternal care is essential for offspring survival in mammals, especially in colonial species where mothers must recognize their own pups. In the Japanese house bat, Pipistrellus abramus, mothers identify their pups using acoustic cues, particularly isolation calls (ICs) produced by newborns. However, the psycho-physiological mechanisms underlying such recognition remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated maternal emotional responses to pup calls by measuring heart rate (HR) changes during controlled playback experiments. We recorded ICs from 2-day-old pups and echolocation calls (ECs) from 30-day-old pups, then presented these sounds to mothers after the early nursing period. HR significantly increased in response to calls from mothers’ own pups—both ICs and ECs—but not to calls from non-family pups. Among all stimuli, ECs from their own older pups evoked the largest HR increase, indicating heightened physiological arousal and sustained maternal responsiveness despite developmental changes in call structure. Unexpectedly, ECs from an unfamiliar adult also induced HR elevation, suggesting that elevated HR can also be triggered by other salient social cues. These findings demonstrate that P. abramus mothers exhibit enhanced physiological responsiveness to their own pups’ vocalizations, and that HR serves as a sensitive index for evaluating arousal levels and social auditory processing based on dynamic acoustic information. Although HR alone cannot separate positive from negative emotional valence, these results highlight the utility of HR for monitoring physiological arousal associated with socially relevant acoustic stimuli in bats.
SN - 2813-5091
ER -