Presentation of “Social recognition in invertebrates” -- Social recognition in invertebrates: an introduction for the readers -- Social recognition in annelids and the evolution of social recognition and cognitive abilities by sexual selection -- Individual recognition in stomatopods -- To what extent can freshwater crayfish recognise other crayfish? Social Recognition in Hermit Crabs -- Social behavior and recognition in decapod shrimps, with emphasis on the Caridea -- Social behavior in amphipods – an overview -- Social recognition in the Arachnida -- Visual recognition in social wasps -- Nestmate recognition in eusocial insects: The honeybee as a model system -- Ontogeny of nestmate recognition in social hymenoptera -- Communication and Social Regulation in Termites -- Recognition mechanisms in the biparental burying beetle.

This book uses a wide range of case studies from different invertebrate taxa to describe the numerous forms of social recognition occurring in this large group of animals, and traces the evolution of this cognitive ability. The authors provide several examples of direct (i.e. the target of recognition is a conspecific) and indirect recognition (i.e. recognition of a reliable proxy rather than an individual, such as a den or a substrate), and discuss cases of familiar recognition (i.e. an animal remembers a conspecific but cannot tell what class it comes from or recognize its identity). Class-level recognition (i.e. an animal assigns a conspecific to an appropriate class of animals), and true individual recognition (i.e. an animal both identifies and recognizes a conspecific on an individual basis) are also addressed.