Aggressive behaviour of male mice (Mus musculus) towards familiar and unfamiliar opponents
Abstract
Two types of colonies of laboratory mice were employed; hierarchically organized ones formed by placing five unfamiliar 8-week-old mice in a cage together and amicably organized colonies in which four male litter mates were kept together throughout the whole period of the experiment. During a 21-day pre-experimental period intra-colony aggressive behaviour was recorded. A dominant animal and ranked subordinates occurred in every hierarchical colony, whilst no aggression was recorded in any of the amicable colonies. During a 25-day period unfamiliar adult male or female mice were introduced daily into the amicable or hierarchical colonies for 10 min. In a third experiment juvenile mice 17, 24, 31 or 38 days old were introduced into hierarchically organized colonies during a 20-day period. In all hierarchical colonies the stranger was attacked irrespective of sex and age; the majority of attacks were carried out by the dominant mouse. Aggression by the dominant declined exponentially throughout the experimental period and regression analyses compared the different data. Unfamiliar adult females were the recipients of fewer attacks than unfamiliar adult males and the age of juvenile strangers was found to be an important factor. Amicably organized mice initially did not attack strangers, but over a period of 25 days the number of attacks on unfamiliar males gradually increased.
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Housing animals from one litter in a confined space can limit aggression in both laboratory and wild mice.
“It is known that housing animals from one litter in a confined space can limit aggression in both laboratory 87 and wild mice.80”
From Ecological validity of social interaction tests in rats and mice (2019) · cites this paper as [87]
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- Authors
- Poole, T. B., & Morgan, H. D. R.
- Affiliations
- Aberystwyth University (GB)
- Venue
- Animal Behaviour
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1975-05
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 470-479
- ISSN
- 0003-3472 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1967716855
- Cited by
- 57
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 6.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Animal Behaviour (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Keywords
- aggression, male mice, Mus musculus, social hierarchy, dominance, familiarity, sex differences in aggression, juvenile mice
- MeSH terms
- Age Factors, Aggression, Animals, Hierarchy, Social, Humans, Male, Sexual Behavior, Animal, Sex Factors, Social Dominance, Social Environment, Species Specificity, Time Factors
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