Sept. 20, 2005 — Female bats share mates with their mothers, grandmothers, and even aunts, according to a new genetic study.

The idea of mother, daughter and grandmother chasing the same male can sound disturbing.

But to female greater horseshoe bats, the behavior helps strengthening family ties, making possible greater levels of cooperation within the colony, Stephen Rossiter, of Queen Mary, University of London, and colleagues report in the current issue of Nature.

Amazingly, amidst the wild partnering, the bats avoid mating with their blood relatives.

"Our study shows the astonishing complexity that can underpin breeding behavior in wild animals. In these female bats, mating behavior has evolved to increase levels of relatedness in the colony without incurring any inbreeding," Rossiter told Animal Planet News.

"This happens by occasionally switching mates. A young female bat will not mate with her father. Only when her mother has switched partner will she share her mother's new mate," he said.

Getting their name from the distinctive horseshoe-shaped flap near the nose, greater horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum), can live up to 30 years.

Females stay segregated in single-sex colonies, raising the pups together, and only visit males living in nearby caves for the mating season.

Rossiter and colleagues examined a bat colony living in the attics of the Gothic Woodchester Mansion, in southwest England.

Abandoned by its builders in the mid 1870s before it was completed, the building has turned out to be the ideal shelter for greater horseshoes, one of Britain's rarest bats.

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