Bettas Aggressive Behavior

Betta splendens, or Siamese Fighting fish, are commonly known for their beautiful and aggressive displays of behavior. Typically, bettas will only display an aggressive behavior when the feel threatened. In those cases, bettas will flick their tail, erect fins and gill covers, and darken skin or dart toward an opponent. Domestic bettas are known to be more aggressive and therefore are kept separate from other bettas. In the experiment to follow, male aggression toward different colors of males was analyzed. It is known that bettas are capable of determining stimulus by color as shown by Ana C. Luchiari. In Ana’s experiment, bettas were trained by color to find a stimulus fish. The purpose was to determine if bettas could find their way (Luchiari 2016). Following along those lines, the team in Life 2022 lab hypothesized that the focal red male would feel more threatened by a male of blue color. To test this, three tanks were set up as shown in figure two.
Results: At the conclusion of the experiment, it became evident that red males felt more threatened by other red males. In five out of the
Sources of error in this experiment could have been that the tanks were slightly too large which deterred the focal male from seeing the other males on each side of him. According to Paul Bronstein, the aggressive behavior in male bettas depends on the accessibility of visual cues (Bronstein,1983). It could have been possible that the focal male was unable to see and therefore react to the blue male. If the blue or red males on either side of the focal male were in opposite sides or too far away from the focal male, then it is possible that the focal male didn’t think they were present or a threat. Another source of error could have come from distractions. The room of the test was noisy and full of colors from articles of clothing and things on the wall. These factors could have swayed the behavior of the focal male and altered the