February 12, 2016

Many animals respond to predator attacks, cues or even some signals from conspecific kin with behaviors directed towards survival. Some animals exclusively fight, flee, or signal to their enemies, but what about animals that have more than one means of anti-predator behaviors in their arsenal? This raises the question of what conditions does an animal display a certain behavior over the other? The african clawed frog Xenopus laevis, is one of these animals that displays multiple anti-predator behaviors and lives in a variety of aquatic environments. The aim of this study is to determine if anti-predator behavior is determined by habitat size. We observed the scare reactions of 10 individual Xenopus laevis in different sized tanks. Frogs displayed “darting” behavior marginally significantly more in large tank than in the small tank. Difference in tank size was found to have no significant difference in “tucking” behavior. Vegetation density in environment could have a factor in behavior choice, though further studies are needed to explore this.