Behavior and Ethology Commons^™

Do Female Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia Spp.) Prefer To Shoal With Familiar Individuals Under Predation Pressure?, Culum Brown

Sentience Collection

Shoaling with familiar individuals may have many benefits including enhanced escape responses or increased foraging efficiency. This study describes the results of two complimentary experiments. The first utilised a simple binary choice experiment to determine if rainbowfish (Melanotaenia spp.) preferred to shoal with familiar individuals or with strangers. The second experiment used a “free range” situation where familiar and unfamiliar individuals were free to intermingle and were then exposed to a predator threat. Like many other small species of fish, rainbowfish were capable of identifying and distinguishing between individuals and choose to preferentially associate with familiar individuals as opposed to …