Siamese Fighting Fish Mirror Experiment

Introduction:
The Siamese Fighting Fish is the one of the model spices to study competition in animals because the male of this species exhibit typical aggressive behavior. The sight of its own reflection in a mirror will stimulate a ritualized series of responses toward the intruder. The purpose of this experiment is to describe the ritualized agonistic display of a male Siamese fighting fish after by stimulated by its own reflection in a mirror. If two fish are placed in the same aquarium together there is typically a ritualistic display until one of the fish becomes subordinate. We conducted an experiment by placing a mirror to the Male Siamese Fighting Fish, creating a safe stimulus of another Male Siamese Fighting Fish. In doing this experiment we will observe if the Male Siamese Fighting Fish becomes more aggressive if we station the mirror in one spot, following his every move. Hypothesis: If the mirror is at constant motion with the Male Siamese Fighting Fish, and then the Fighting Fish will have a quicker latency and slower recovery.

Method and Material:
We used a male Siamese
We observed that it took the thirty seconds for the male Siamese fighting fish to get in his aggressive state. The fish's gills expanded and his fin speed increased. He would approach the mirror and then seemingly get bored and swim in opposite direction. However the recovery was also much quicker when the mirror was removed after being in constant motion. From this data we concluded that naturally the fish feels more threatened when the mirror is in constant motion following him around the fishbowl. Factors that may have alter the accuracy of our experiment is the distortion of the reflection due to the fishbowl. We cannot be sure that if the size of the Male Siamese Fighting Fish is also a variable to the