Establishment of Social Status without Individual Discrimination in the Cricket

Abstract

Agonistic behavior in crickets was investigated to understand socially adaptive behavior, which assists with the understanding of the design of an artificial autonomous system in a social organization. Agonistic behavior between male crickets is released by the perception of cuticular substances of conspecific males. The degree of aggressiveness in crickets escalates from antennal fencing to tactical contact until one male quits fighting, at which time social status is established. The question of whether crickets are able to recognize one another to establish social status in an agonist interaction is worthy of pursuit. However, it would be difficult to conduct an experiment to explore this issue while using many individuals. Hence, we examined the social organization among male crickets using a two-step approach: (i) an experiment involving a simulated cricket behavior model and (ii) an experiment involving a behavior experiment using real animals. Our results suggest that crickets establish social status without recognition of their opponents.