School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK.
Biol Lett. 2011 Oct 23;7(5):683-5. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0328. Epub 2011 Apr 20.
We examine lateralization of lateral displays in convict cichlids, Amatitlania nigrofasciata, and show a population level preference for showing the right side. This enables contesting pairs of fish to align in a head-to-tail posture, facilitating other activities. We found individuals spent a shorter mean time in each left compared with each right lateral display. This lateralization could lead to contesting pairs using a convention to align in a predictable head-to-tail arrangement to facilitate the assessment of fighting ability. It has major implications for the common use of mirror images to study fish aggression, because the 'opponent' would never cooperate and would consistently show the incorrect side when the real fish shows the correct side. With the mirror, the 'normal' head-to-tail orientation cannot be achieved.
我们研究了侧斑丽鱼（Amatitlania nigrofasciata）中侧斑的侧显偏侧性，并显示出该鱼群更喜欢展示右侧。这使得竞争对的鱼能够以头尾相对的姿势排列，从而促进其他活动。我们发现，个体在每个左侧展示上花费的平均时间比在每个右侧展示上的时间短。这种偏侧性可能导致竞争对的鱼使用一种约定，以可预测的头尾排列方式对齐，从而促进对战斗能力的评估。这对常用镜像来研究鱼类攻击行为有重大影响，因为“对手”永远不会合作，并且当真正的鱼展示正确的一侧时，镜像鱼总是会显示错误的一侧。有了镜子，就无法实现正常的头尾朝向。
