Featured Image Credit: Vivid Aquariums
By: Alice Morris
Any marriage counselor will tell you that, when it comes to a good relationship, it can’t be one-sided and you have to work together. There are few that know this better than the chalk bass, a fascinating hermaphroditic fish that mates for life.
Scientists from the University of Florida studied pairs of the small, monogamous fish off the coast of Panama for six months, and they were astonished by the way these fish partition reproductive duties amongst themselves.
To ensure each individual in a pair is pulling its weight in the relationship, chalk bass will switch genders at least 20 times a day, taking turns to produce and fertilize eggs. This way, theoretically, every fish will fertilize eggs at the same rate that they produce them.
Photo Credit: marineworld.com
As if that weren’t enough teamwork for you, the pair also motivates one another to produce as many eggs as possible by mirroring each other’s output. In other words, if an individual wants its partner to produce a lot of eggs, it better make sure it’s reaching its own quota.
It’s an admirable system built on the simple principle of “you get what you give” and it’s certainly something many humans could learn from.
“Our study indicates that animals in long-term partnerships are paying attention to whether their partner is contributing to the relationship fairly – something many humans may identify with from their own long-term relationships,” said Mary Hart, the lead author of the study published in Behavioral Ecology back in April.
The researchers were especially interested in the monogamous relationship of chalk bass because they live in high-density social groups where extra-pair mating would be relatively easy.
What may keep these fish so faithful to each other is their relatively short life span. Chalk bass only live for a year and finding a new mate every day would be a difficult and risky task. Staying faithful to one partner ensures that each individual is fertilizing as many eggs as possible each night, a strategy that is beneficial to everyone involved.
Photo Credit: Source
To the surprise of the researchers, every single bass pair marked stayed together for the entire duration of the study or until both fish eventually disappeared from the study site. This is an amazing statistic when you consider that only three to five percent of animals are monogamous, and monogamy is especially rare in fish.
There were rare cases of infidelity of course. When one fish in a pair produced more eggs than the other, the surplus eggs would be “donated” to a neighboring fish to fertilize, but these flings were never enough to break apart the bonds of the original pair.
The chalk bass certainly represents an unconventional reproductive strategy, but they are living proof that hard work builds a strong relationship.
Read more about these incredible fish at: upi.com, sciencedaily.com, and practicalfishkeeping.co.uk