Lab Report

Abstract: The reason for performing this experiment was to test the agnostic behavior coming from the male Betta fish. This experiment was conducting by taking a male Siamese fighting fish and placing its fish bowl next to a mirror so it would be able to see his reflection. We also exposed the fish to many others to see if the behavior was the same or different when placed next to: a goldfish, a female Betta fish, and a zebra fish. My hypothesis was supposed by this experiment and it was observed that the Betta fish was disturbed by his reflection in the mirror but his aggressive behavior decreased rapidly when other tanks, containing different types of fish, were placed next to his. Introduction

Ethology is the study of animal behavior. An animal’s behavior is based on its response to evolution, ecology, social organization and sensory abilities of an animal (J.Morgan, Investigating Biology p.677). There are three types of behaviors: agonistic, orientation, and reproductive. Orientation is when the organism is placed in their beneficial environment consisting of two behaviors, taxis (movement directly towards or away something) and kinesis (random movement). Reproductive is detected using drosophila in this lab, it consists of finding courting and mating with another of the species Agnostic behavior is found in a situation where the animal feels threated by another, leading to the organism looking bigger or more threatening to the opponent. Within the Agnostic behavior, we can find aggressive behavior, where the animal goes towards the stimuli with intentions of attacking, or submission where the animal will retreat. In our case, the Betta fish, also known as Siamese fighting fish, was found to show aggressive agnostic behavior while shown his reflection. Male Betta fish are known to be extremely territorial while also hostile to other male betta fish. If two betta fish are placed in the same bowl, they will perform aggressive behavior until