An exception to the rule: common vampire bats do not learn taste aversions

Conditioned taste aversions function by preventing an organism from ingesting a food previously associated with gastrointestinal malaise. Taste-aversion learning has been observed in many animals: molluscs to mammals, insects to birds. However, among mammals, neither bats nor monophagous species have been investigated adequately. Here we show that although three dietary generalists (one insectivorous and two frugivorous bats) readily acquired …