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It has been hypothesized that site‐specific reduction of estrogen receptor‐α (ERα) is associated with the expression of male prosocial behaviors. Specifically, highly social males are predicted to express significantly lower levels of ERα than females and less social males in brain regions associated with prosocial behavior including the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) and the medial amygdala (MeA). This hypothesis was tested by comparing ERα immunoreactivity (IR) in three species of microtines, the polygynous montane (Microtus montanus) and meadow (M. pennsylvanicus) voles and the monogamous pine vole (M. pinetorum), and two species of cricetines that differ in the extent of social pair‐bond formation, Siberian (Phodopus sungorus) and Djungarian (P. campbelli) hamsters. As predicted, ERα‐IR was sexually dimorphic in the BST and MeA of the highly social species, with females expressing …