Agonistic behaviour

Agonistic behaviour is any social behaviour related to fighting. The term has broader meaning than aggressive behaviour because it includes threats, displays, retreats, placation, and conciliation. The term "agonistic behaviour" was first defined and used by J.P Scott and Emil Fredericson in 1951 in their paper "The Causes of Fighting in Mice and Rats" in Physiological Zoology.^[1][2] Agonistic behaviour is seen in many animal species because resources including food, shelter, and mates are often limited.

Some forms of agonistic behaviour are between contestants who are competing for access to the same resources, such as food or mates. Other times, it involves tests of strength or threat display that make animals look large and more physically fit, a display that may allow it to gain the resource before an actual battle takes place. Although agonistic behaviour varies among species, agonistic interaction consists of three kinds of behaviours: threat, aggression, and submission.^[3] These three behaviours are functionally and physiologically interrelated, yet fall outside the narrow definition of aggressive behaviour. While any one of these divisions of behaviours may be seen alone in an interaction between two animals, they normally occur in sequence from start to end.^[4] Depending on the availability and importance of a resource, behaviours can range from a fight to the death or a much safer ritualistic behaviour, though ritualistic or display behaviours are the most common form of agonistic behaviours.^[4]