Specialized Face Learning Is Associated with Individual Recognition in Paper Wasps

Abstract

We demonstrate that the evolution of facial recognition in wasps is associated with specialized face-learning abilities. Polistes fuscatus can differentiate among normal wasp face images more rapidly and accurately than nonface images or manipulated faces. A close relative lacking facial recognition, Polistes metricus, however, lacks specialized face learning. Similar specializations for face learning are found in primates and other mammals, although P. fuscatus represents an independent evolution of specialization. Convergence toward face specialization in distant taxa as well as divergence among closely related taxa with different recognition behavior suggests that specialized cognition is surprisingly labile and may be adaptively shaped by species-specific selective pressures such as face recognition.

Experimental confirmation that avian plumage traits function as multiple status signals in winter contests

“…In turn, complexity in social dynamics could lead to the evolution of "multiple messages," as suggested in some of the empirical examples given above (Bókony et al, 2006;Chaine et al, 2011). One possibility not yet investigated is that some signals may target familiar individuals while others target strangers (but see Tibbetts and Dale, 2004;Sheehan and Tibbetts, 2011). Likewise, dominance interactions in different contexts (e.g.…”

Conceptual learning by miniature brains

“…Visual pattern recognition in bees goes beyond rigid retinotopic matching that precludes recognition when slight changes in orientation or angle of view are introduced. Bees and wasps extract relevant features of images and combine them in specific configural representations either for flowerlike stimulus recognition, in the case of bees, or for interindividual recognition based on visual masks, in the case of some wasp species [31,33,80,81]. Bees can flexibly generalize their choice to visual images sharing such configurations despite drastic variations in other spatial details and positioning in the visual field [36].…”

Pattern recognition algorithm reveals how birds evolve individual egg pattern signatures

“…Signatures are common in diverse taxa. They can be chemical, like the hydrocarbon signatures used by Formica ants to recognize nest-mates 3 , or auditory, like the vocalizations used by Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) mothers and pups to reunite in dense colonies 4 , or visual, like the facial patterns used by Polistes fuscatus paper wasps to recognize individuals in the colony 5 . In birds, egg patterns can be visual signatures of offspring identity, enabling parents to recognize their eggs in a crowded colony 6 or to distinguish their own eggs from those of a brood parasitic cheat 7 .…”