Crayfish Agonistic Behaviors

Introduction:
Antagonistic behaviors are those conflict behaviors that include aggressive and submissive behaviors. Antagonistic behaviors tend to occur over territoriality. Every animal is looking for the most advantageous place to live and this results in having conflicts with other animals similar to their species and their needs. Animals fight for territory for many reason including: competition for food, to avoid interruptions while mating, survival and others. Fighting becomes a result from intrusion. Many animals mark their territories in different ways. The final result of the fight tends to favor an individual in a higher social position over the other (Wilson, 1975). Meaning, at the end of the fight, one

Crayfish agonistic interactions are highly ritualized and can be described by performing various agonistic and antagonistic behaviors. For instances, Crayfish are known for their ritualized fights where they are scandalized but not harmful. Each behavior in the fight has its name. Some of the agonistic behaviors are: tail flip, tail tuck, avoidance, touching, separate, fight, approach, and threat. They are prevalent during the fight and its part of their ritual, although in some fights these may not me present (crayfish don’t fight at all). Antagonistic behaviors occur when the crayfish is fighting over territory just like every other animal. Crayfish are one of the best animals to experiment these behaviors because of their flexible and easy maintenance in

When crayfish have larger chelae, this gives them a better outcome in the fight. The experiment procedure involved having similar sizes, one possible error that could have affected the outcome could have been having a crayfish relative bigger than another. Another source was if both crayfish did not fight at all and there was not a winner not a loser. If they did not show agonistic behaviors, we could not determine anything (size affecting outcome).

Works Cited

Bovbjerg, R.V. 1956. Some factors affecting aggressive behavior in crayfish. Physiological Zoology 29:127–136.
Moore, P.A. (2007). Agonistic behavior in freshwater crayfish: the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on aggressive encounters and dominance. In Evolutionary ecology of social and sexual systems – crustaceans as model organisms: 90–114. Duffy, J.E. & Thiel, M. (Eds). New York: Oxford University Press.
Wilson, E. O. 1975. Sociobiology. Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
Ranta, E., and K. Lindström 1992. Power to hold sheltering burrows by juveniles of the signal crayfish, Pacifastacus leniusculus. Ethology 92:217–226.
Rubenstein, D.I., and B.A. Hazlett. 1974. Examination of the agonistic behaviour of the crayfish Orconectes virilis by character analysis. Behaviour