 Likewise, kin recognition was once defined on the basis of sensory capacities that are not normally imputed to bacteria and other microbes (e.g., Hepper 1986). But kin recognition on the basis of chemical “sensing” is now a well-known phenomenon in microorganisms, and has broadened what is known about the process in general. In bacteria, recognition mechanisms are biochemical and have molecular underpinnings, which means the process can be analyzed and broken down to its components relatively straightforwardly. In animals, inferences about recognition mechanisms are broader and less defined, due to the behavioral level at which kin recognition must be investigated (Wall 2016). Protist kin recognition researchers argue that the phenomena, origins and evolution of kin recognition in eukaryotes is best studied in diverse unicellular eukaryotic microbes (e.g., Paz-y-Miño-C &amp; Espinosa 2016). Nobody is saying that microbes directly represent the complex phenomena going on in animals. Bacterial models of kin recognition in general are indirect and simplified representations of more complex processes of perception in other domains of life (Wall 2016). However, it is well established in philosophy that this sort of indirect representation is key to the very practice of modelling (e.g., Weisberg 2013).