HOW PARADISE FISH (MACROPODUS-OPERCULARIS, L) EXPLORES A CHESSBOARD

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 29  (4) , 401-406
Abstract
The exploratory movements of Anabantid fish in a chessboard-like aquarium (divided into 25 communicating compartments) as a new environment were investigated. The analysis was based on the observation of the route of 2 inbred strains of paradise fish (M. opercularis; Teleostei, Anabantoidae). Their movement within the blocks until 100 steps was recorded and the obtained process was compared with hypothetical random walks. Within the same period of time the fish meets significantly more new compartments than in the simulated process. The discrepancy between the 2 processes can be interpreted as the result of a successful exploratory strategy of the fish. In this exploratory movement the fish prefers the outer compartments to the inner ones, which explains the striking difference between the actual behavior and the uniform simulation. The transition probabilities from the actual compartment to the possible neighboring compartments differ greatly. A model taking this inhomogeneity into account still does not fit sufficiently, indicating that this exploratory strategy is more complicated than this memoryless construction. There are differences between the 2 strains investigated, which may reflect some role of genetic factors.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: