Tail rattling and agonistic behavior in mice: Coincidental or causal?

Abstract

Twenty-four male mice of the F1 generation of a cross between C57BL/10J X SJL/J mice were weaned and placed either with siblings or isolated immediately until testing. At 65 days of age, subjects were assigned to one of four arena testing situations; alone, alike, different, and none. In addition, leukocyte counts were obtained for all subjects after behavioral testing. Contrary to previous research, the results showed that there is no significant relationship between tail rattling and agonistic behavior. Furthermore, a sequential analysis performed on the interaction of two animals demonstrated that tail rattling does not serve a communicative function. The data strongly suggest, however, that tail rattling is an indicator of stress as measured by white blood cell count. Implications for the use of appropriate phenotypes in behavior-genetic analysis are discussed. © 1976, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.