Mountain Ecosystem of Yunnan Province Higher Institutes College, School of Life Science of Yunnan Normal University, Kunming; 650500, China

The ability to discriminate and recognize individuals plays a primary role in the evolution of social behaviours such as nepotism, altruism and mate choice. Olfactory-based recognition of individual has been identified in many mammalian species. Tree shrews, Tupaia belangeri, both males and females mark their surroundings with urine, feces and skin gland secretions in natural habitat as well as under laboratory conditions. Depending on the previous studies, it imply that olfactory communication may be particularly important to tree shrews, but many studies in tree shrews remains descriptive. In this study we offered animals a binary choice in a Y-maze, then we measured the olfactory investigation behaviour (frequency of sniffing) of Tupaia belangeri in three experiments designed to whether Tupaia belangeri can discriminate individual. Tree shrews showed a significant decline in investigation when exposed to urine and skin gland secretions from the same animal on few successive trials, when with a novel individual scent presented, a significant increase in sniffing time on this trial over the last habituation trial. These results establish that urine and skin gland secretions of Tupaia belangeri contain sufficient signatures for receivers to discriminate theconspecifics, while feces may play a purely physiological excretion function.

Keywords: Tupaia belangeri; Odour cues; Habituatione-dishabituation experiment Investigate response; Individual discrimination