Sunday, March 09, 2008 Quijano: My granddaddy was a crayfish By Jingo Quijano Last Round
LADIES, is your true love oftentimes belligerent, bellicose and boorish?
Is he too aggressive? Does he pick a fight with the paper boy, watch-your-car-get-stolen boy or anything at all that remotely resembles a boy?
In short, does he behave like a crayfish?
Well, if a recent study conducted at Bowling Green State University and published in the journal Animal Behavior is accurate, then you best surrender the remote control and stop denying him his daily dose of controlled violence on TV. Or better yet, encourage him to watch live boxing shows or mixed martial arts events.
According to University professor Paul Moore of the Department of Biological Science, the study discovered that among male spectator crayfish, who were watching a fight take place, further aggression was chilled.
“The concept of watching fights and having this experience change the potential outcome of the next encounter is something that matches with both studies and anecdotal evidence,” said Moore.
But why crayfish?
Because according to Moore and colleagues Thomas Zuland and Rebecca Zuland-Schneider they chose the shellfish for their particularly aggressive and the fact that they also form dominance hierarchies and engage in ritualized fighting.
Hmmm, and I thought we evolved from the apes.
JUST LIKE BOXING. For the study, the researchers created a fighting arena with retractable walls. Two males were put into the arena, while a third bystander was allowed to watch over a 15-minute period and a total of 80 bystander crayfish were used in the experiment.
After watching the fight, the observer crayfish were placed in another arena with a new opponent of comparable size. Much to the surprise of the scientists, crayfish that previously observed an encounter rarely initiated fights. They also took longer to end fights, which escalated slowly, and lost more often than crayfish who had not watched an earlier battle.
Moore said that a possible explanation may be linked to urination. Since crayfish urinate during fights to release chemical cues, the observing shellfish might have been stimulated to do the same, “wasting” their chemicals before the real fight.
Second, “it is possible that the observing crayfish, again lacking the presence of chemical cues, was disturbed enough with the conflicting sensory information that its internal motivation to fight...was reduced,” he said.
Interestingly, another recent study, this time conducted by the Department of Zoology at the University of Melbourne on the Australian yabby crayfish, found that males seem to never forget the faces of foes. They prefer to fight with opponents they’ve encountered before, probably because they know more about them.
Hmmm….Juan Manuel Marquez must be the biggest crayfish of them all.
But a warning to the guys. After invoking the foregoing research so you can get your daily fight fix, please clarify that any and all similarities between fight fans and crayfish must end there.
Lest you confirm the nagging suspicion that all women have about us. Here’s why.
David MacMillan, who led the Australian research, concluded that crayfish are “capable of more than we expected for an animal with such a simple nervous system.”
Ouch!!!
HE SAID IT. “I am a grown man, a full-grown man, going against a fat kid...Diaz is pudgy.. He can do whatever he wants to do—but when that bell rings—he will still be a fat boy. They can talk all they want. He may be able to march through those guys who were afraid of him, but I ain’t scared of him. My mama didn’t raise no punk.”—Nate “The Galaxxy Warrior” Campbell who challenges IBF lightweight champ Juan Diaz today
THE LAST ROUND. It’s on a dear friend, and batchmate, Dr. Oliver Baclig, who turns a year older this week. Cheers!
