Reflective environment heightens crayfish aggressive and fearful behaviors

TL;DR

Crayfish show more aggression and fear in a reflective environment, suggesting they recognize their reflection as another crayfish.

Contribution

This study demonstrates that crayfish treat their reflection as a conspecific, revealing new insights into their cognitive abilities.

Findings

Crayfish displayed increased aggression in a reflective environment.

Crayfish showed slight fear responses in the reflective environment.

Behavioral changes were minimal in the non-reflective control environment.

Abstract

Animals typically respond to their reflection as a conspecific and will respond as if the reflection were another animal that they could interact with, either fearfully or aggressively. We investigated how a modified reflective environment of a standard glass aquarium affects the aggressive and fearful behaviors of the crayfish
Orconectes virilis
, based on pre-determined behavior criteria. We found that the crayfish were both increasingly aggressive and slightly fearful in the reflective environment compared to minimal behavioral changes in the control non-reflective environment. Thus, our findings support that crayfish recognize their mirror image as a conspecific.

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