Cottontop tamarin, Saguinus oedipus, alarm calls contain sufficient information for recognition of individual identity

Most work on individual recognition has focused on signals used in the context of social contact or mate attraction. Here we present the results of a playback experiment designed to test whether cues of individual identity are encoded in alarm calls given by cottontop tamarins during encounters with a trained and flying goshawk, Accipiter gentilis. Based on a habituation–discrimination paradigm previously used with this species to show individual recognition of their long calls, subjects showed the ability to distinguish individuals by their alarm calls alone. Once subjects habituated to multiple exemplars of one individual's alarm call, their response was renewed to the alarm calls of another individual but not to a new set of alarm calls from the same individual. We discuss the implications of these results for current theories of signal processing.