More Bobbing: Goby Body Language
I recently went diving (surprise!) and filmed a goby (surprise!). The goby, Amblyeleotris rubrimarginata, I think, took a bite, and then started bobbing up and down:
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Why is the goby doing this? I explained this in a post from a few years ago: It’s a social alarm signal, where gobies warn others of close-by predatory fishes. Scientists managed to evoke this behavior by showing the gobies plastic lizardfish. And the bobbing is contagious, gobies seeing otyehr gobies bobbing start doing it to. In this way the alarm signal can propagate from goby to goby. The original work showed this in 2 species of non-shrimp gobies, but this is likely the same behavior in shrimp gobies, such as the Amblyeleotris rubrimarginata shown above too. Details are in this old post:
Best Fishes,
Klaus
PS: Don’t miss “Muck” if you haven’t seen it yet. A sequel is coming soon…
