Animals avoid things that are unpleasant and seek-out things that bring them pleasure. The new findings may help explain why animals would evolve the ability to form emotional bonds with their mates.
ABC NEWS: ‘Being stuck with an unwanted romantic partner is enough to put a girl in a bad mood — even when that girl is a fish, according to a new study. When researchers removed a female’s chosen mate and left her with a male she had rejected, the females showed pessimistic behavior, taking longer to investigate boxes that might or might not contain food. “It is, as far as we know, the very first demonstration of emotional bonds between partners in non-human species,” said Francois-Xavier Dechaume-Moncharmont, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France and one of the study’s authors.
It may seem obvious that an animal that mates for life will feel something for its partner. Indeed, many species display what look like signs of affection, from wolves nuzzling to cockatoos preening each other’s feathers, and there are reports of swans and monkeys apparently grieving for lost partners. But to assess the emotions of animals objectively, scientists must put aside what a behavior looks like and conduct carefully designed experiments…
This test allowed the researchers to explore how females felt about their mates. Convict cichlids mate for life and cooperate to raise young, with females tending the eggs while males patrol for danger, said Dechaume-Moncharmont. Once the young hatch, both parents will grab any babies that stray too far and carry them back to the nest in their mouths. A well-matched cichlid couple can be a formidable team. When a predator approaches, both parents attack together, their combined ferocity often driving away much larger fish. Nesting cichlids will even attack the hands of researchers who try to clean the aquarium, said Dechaume-Moncharmont…
The new findings may help explain why animals would evolve the ability to form emotional bonds with their mates. According to Amber de Vere, an animal cognition researcher, animals avoid things that are unpleasant and seek out things that bring them pleasure. Thus, she said, if a fish feels happy when she is with a high-quality partner, “she’s more likely to seek him out, more likely to stay around him, more likely to bond with him, and therefore more likely to produce more successful offspring”.’ SOURCE…
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