Fishes fright reaction

In minnows, taste is not sufficient for predator recognition. Anosmic fathead minnows, P. pmmelas, did not show the flight reaction to the odor of northern pike, Esox lucius (Chivers and Smith, 1993). Naive European minnows, Phoxinus phoxinus, do not exhibit a fright reaction when first exposed to a predator odor, such as that of pike, E. lucius. They develop a conditioned fright response only after experiencing the predator odor in dangerous circumstances, such as when accompanied by schreckstoff (alarm pheromone) of conspecifics. Responses to the odor of non-piscivorous fishes such as tilapia, Tilapia mariae, can also be conditioned in this fashion but the responses are much weaker (Magurran, 1989). 

Reed, J. P. (1969). Alarm substances and fright reaction in some fishes from the Southeastern United States. Transactions of the American Eisheries Society 98,664-668. 

Pfeiffer, W., The distribution of fright reaction and alarm substance cells in fishes, Copeia, 1977, 653. 

Smith, R.J.F. 1982. The adaptive significance of the alarm substance— fright reaction system In Chemoreception in Fishes. (Ed. by T.J. Kara), pp. 327—342. Amsterdam Elsevier. 

Both Reed et al. (1972) and Ruddy and Baeder (1973) elicited fright reactions with histamine but histamine is present in all vertebrates while the alarm pheromone is specific to ostariophysans. Histamine "Occurs widely in nature as a result of putrefactive processes" (Stecher et al., p. 533, 1969). So the response reported by Reed et al. (1972) and Ruddy and Baeder (1973) may be an adaptive avoidance response to odours of putrefaction rather than a specific response to conspecific alarm pheromone. Neither group of researchers tested the response of non-ostariophysan fish to histamine. 

There is no direct experimental evidence to show that the fright reaction actually improves the survival of the receiver. There are, however, a number of correlations between the fright reactions shown by various fish when they detect alarm substance and their reactions to other indicators of predation. The most general type of reaction in schooling fish is for the school to aggregate and move away from the area of the stimulus. This type of response was first recorded in the European minnow by von Frisch (1938) and has since been observed in many species (Pfeiffer, 1977). 

Other types of fright reaction occur among fishes (Pfeiffer, 1963b). 

Predator specific fright reactions occur in the common shiner. They respond to alarm substance by seeking cover in vegetation if a kite, simulating an piscivorous bird, is flown over their tank,but they do not enter cover if a predatory fish is present in the tank (Heczko, 1980 Heczko and Seghers, 1981). 

Ahsan, S. N.,and Prasad, M., 1982, Occurrence of fright reaction in Indian fishes, Biol. Bull. India, 4 41-47 ... 

Gandolfi, G., Mainardi, D., and Rossi, A. C., 1968, The fright reaction of zebra fish. Atti della Societa Italiana di Scienze Naturali e del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano, 107 74-88. 

Pfeiffer, W., 1963a, The fright reaction in North American Fish, Can. J. Zool., 41 69-77. 

Smith, R. J. F., 1982a, The adaptive significance of the alarm substance -fright reaction system, i Chemoreception in Fishes," L J. Hara ed., Elsevier, Amsterdam. 

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