AR-News: (SINGAPORE) Fighting fish: A model father

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

The Straits Times

JUNE 18, 2004 FRI

Researchers have found that evolutionary history and environmental factors 
may determine how the male fighting fish takes care of its young 
By Chang Ai-Lien 
MOTHERS who feel run off their feet can take a leaf from the fighting fish 
childcare manual.
Father knows best in the world of fighting fish, where the female's job is 
just to mate, lay eggs and swim off to resume her independent life.
It is up to the male to take care of the brood, either building bubble nests 
for the eggs and babies, or keeping them safe in his mouth.
Overturning conventional wisdom, researchers here have come up with new 
findings that reveal why male fighting fish care for their young the way they do, 
which has made the cover of the journal Evolution.
By recreating the fish's evolution through DNA analysis, they found that very 
similar species of fighting fish could have different childcare habits, 
depending on their evolutionary history and where they lived.
One of the researchers involved was Associate Professor Peter Ng of the 
National University of Singapore's (NUS') Department of Biological Sciences, who is 
also director of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research.
'We now believe that these extremely adaptable fish have evolved different 
forms of care, and this is dictated by the niche habitats and conditions where 
they live,' he said.
For about 20 years, scientists have argued the fundamental question of which 
came first: bubble nests or mouth brooding.
Some believed bubble nests came first - where the male takes the eggs and 
places them in a nest made of bubbles at the water's surface - followed by the 
mouth brooder, which takes care of the eggs and fry in its mouth, starving the 
entire time.
Other scientists thought that the breeding patterns depended on where the 
fish lived - stagnant water made it easier to build bubble nests, while 
fast-flowing streams called for mouth brooding.

full story:
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/techscience/story/0,4386,256886,00.html  




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"Not having known anything better does not alleviate the suffering of the 
animal. Its fundamental desires remain and it is the frustration of those desires 
that is a great part of its suffering. There are so many examples: the dairy 
cow who is never allowed to raise her young, the battery hen who can never 
walk or stretch her wings, the sow who can never build a nest or root for food in 
the forest litter, etc. Eventually we frustrate the animal's most fundamental 
desire of all - to live." --David Cowles-Hamar. 
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