Intra-species recognition is the recognition by a member of a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of a

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...

(another member of the same species). In many species, such recognition is necessary for procreation. Different species may employ different methods, but all of them are based on one or more

sense A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system re ...

s (after all, this is how the organism gathers information about the environment). The recognition may happen by

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

signature ( smell), by having a distinctive shape or color (

sight Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...

), by emitting certain sounds (

hearing Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds through an organ, such as an ear, by detecting vibrations as periodic changes in the pressure of a surrounding medium. The academic field concerned with hearing is audit ...

), or even by behaviour patterns. Often a combination of these is used. Among human beings, the sense of sight is usually in charge of recognizing other members of the same species, with maybe the subconscious help of smell. In particular, the human

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a ve ...

has a disproportionate amount of processing power dedicated to finely analyze the features of a human face. This is why we are able to distinguish almost all human beings from each other (barring look-alikes), and a human being from a similar species like some anthropomorphic

ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...

, with only a quick glance. Intra-species recognition systems are often subtle. For example, ornithologists have great difficulty in distinguishing the chiffchaff from the

willow warbler The willow warbler (''Phylloscopus trochilus'') is a very common and widespread leaf warbler which breeds throughout northern and temperate Europe and the Palearctic, from Ireland east to the Anadyr River basin in eastern Siberia. It is strong ...

by eye, and there is no evidence that the birds themselves can do so other than by the different

songs A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetition ...

of the male. Sometimes, intra-species recognition is fallible: in many species of

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...

, the males are not uncommonly seen copulating with females of the wrong species or even with inanimate objects. ''

Heliconius charithonia ''Heliconius charithonia'', the zebra longwing or zebra heliconian, is a species of butterfly belonging to the subfamily Heliconiinae of the family Nymphalidae. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1767 12th edition of ''Systema Natura ...

'' displays intra-species recognition by roosting with conspecifics. They do this with the help of UV rhodopsins in the eye that help them distinguish between ultraviolet yellow pigments and regular yellow pigments. They have also been known to emit chemical cues in order to recognize members of their own species.Sacledo, Christian (2010).
Environmental Elements Involved in Communal Roosting in Heliconius Butterflies (Lepidoptera:Nymphalidae)
" Entomological Society of America 39 (3): 907–11

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Intra-Species Recognition Reproduction

See also

References