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Archerfish respond to a hunting robotic conspecific

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Abstract

While the unique hunting behavior of archerfish has received considerable scientific attention, the specific social cues that govern behaviors like intraspecific kleptoparasitism in the species are less understood. This paper asks whether the use of a robotic facsimile representing an archerfish can elicit a social response if it approximates an archerfish’s appearance, along with key features of its hunting behavior. We found that the fish respond to the robot when it hunted, as indicated by decreasing distances between the robot and fish (and among the fish) during the robot’s hunting behavior sequence, as well as higher net transfer entropy when the robot was hunting. These effects were present even when the robot’s “hunt” was unproductive and did not result in food. The temporal pattern of fish approach to the robot and each other indicated that the segment of robot hunting behavior proximal to the robotic facsimile shot elicited fish behavior initially. However, earlier cues in the robot’s hunting sequence became important following more experience with a food contingency. This indicates that further studies could use a robotic facsimile to conduct a detailed stimulus analysis, changing aspects of the robot’s appearance and behavior to uncover the basic mechanisms of information transfer among individuals in a social hunting scenario.

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Notes

  1. * indicates an F value for which Mauchly’s test indicated significant evidence of violation of sphericity and so Greenhouse–Geisser correction was applied.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank members of the Villanova University Comparative Cognition Laboratory—Sara Glass, Christina Folan, Heather Hall, William McCarthy, Isabella McIlvanine, Ryan Pluck, Griffin Richards, and Nicole Xiong—for their assistance coding video data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA

    Alexander A. Brown, Spencer R. Folk & Brent A. Utter

  2. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA

    Michael F. Brown

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  1. Alexander A. Brown
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  2. Michael F. Brown
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  3. Spencer R. Folk
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  4. Brent A. Utter
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Contributions

A.B., M.B., and B.U. conceived the study. B.U. developed the lure morphology and robot shooting behavior. M.B., B.U., and A.B conducted the experiments. A.B. and S.F. developed the robotic control system. M.B., B.U., and A.B. analyzed the data. All authors contributed to the interpretation of results and the preparation of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Alexander A. Brown.

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The authors disclose no conflicts of interest

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Communicated by Donato Romano.

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This article is published as part of the Special Issue on Animal–Robot Interaction and Biohybrid Organisms.

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Brown, A.A., Brown, M.F., Folk, S.R. et al. Archerfish respond to a hunting robotic conspecific. Biol Cybern 115, 585–598 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-021-00885-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-021-00885-7

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