Temporal Aspects of Calling Behavior in the Oyster Toadfish, 'Opsanus tau,'.

摘要

The oyster toadfish produces two calls: an agonistic grunt and a boatwhistle associated with courtship. The boatwhistle is produced only by males on nests and is endogenously driven as well as influenced by calling of surrounding males. A toadfish, not hearing other males, may still boatwhistle for long periods and attract a female. Although toadfish may be influenced to call by the calling of adjacent males, one would assume the circadian patterning of the boatwhistle to be influenced by photoperiod and the fish's behavioral strategy relative to it. Additionally, the rate of calling may be a key to a male's internal state. Calling rate has been manipulated experimentally, but no one has studied the calling rate of undisturbed individual fish. This note is a preliminary attempt to look at when and how fast toadfish call by recording the boatwhistles of individual males on their nests adjacent to the pilings of a dock at Solomons, Md.