Posted by Pretzel on 9/20/2002, 1:43 pm ANIMALS EAVESDROP
I waz lookin ovver momma's sholder this morning an saw the folowing artical inna nuzletter. Now, I don't know wat it meenz ecksactly. Altho fishez are not az smart az mamalls (like katz fur instanse), it seemz to me like the fish wooda had a eezier time defeeting the wining fish cuz he wood have learnt itz fighting tactics wen he waz eevesdroping.
Animals have bad habits too. Researchers say animals eavesdrop and it influences what they do. Evolutionary biologist Lee Dugatkin, at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, studied eavesdropping among male swordtail fish kept in an experimental tank. Two fish were on one side of a partition and one was on the other. The partitions were either clear or opaque. Dugatkin says the fish that could see their potential adversaries fighting through the clear partition were less likely to defeat the winner of the fight. "We were able to separate winning and losing streaks based on eavesdropping," he says, adding psychological factors seem to have a major effect on animal societies and the levels of aggression. More on this experiment is found in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.
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