关键词: 翼手目（蝙蝠）, 菊头蝠, 回声定位声波, 性二态

Abstract: Sexual dimorphism in call frequency is widespread in a variety of animals. Despite possessing comparatively poor vision, bats conduct their activities at night. They primarily employ acoustic signals for spatial navigation, prey tracking, and social information transfer. Here, we use adult least horseshoe bats, Rhinolophus pusillus, to assess whether sexual dimorphism in the frequency of echolocation calls facilitates sex recognition. Analyses revealed that echolocation calls of R. pusillus showed marked gender differences in frequency parameters. In the playback periods, the number of response calls was the highest for white noise, followed by male echolocation call, and was the lowest for female echolocation call. The number of bat response calls, however, increased progressively after the playback of white noise, female echolocation call, and male echolocation call. The intensity of bat response calls showed a rapid decrease in the presence of white noise versus echolocation call stimuli. These results indicate that frequency parameters of echolocation calls encode information on caller sex in least horseshoe bats, which facilitates sex recognition within the population. Our findings provide some implications for the potential role of echolocation calls in mate choice among bats.

Key words: Chiroptera (Bats), Echolocation call, Rhinolophus, Sexual dimorphism