• Journal of Aquaculture
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 1999

A series of experiments were conducted to examine on what stimulus giant danio (Danio malabaricus) were mainly responsible for detecting alarm substance. When 0.15 ml alarm substance (10 ppm) was introduced into the tank, fish showed no notable change in swimming pattern. However, the introduction of 1.5 ml alarm substance (100 ppm) could induce fright reaction about in 6 minutes. Further, when 15 ml alarm substance (1,000 ppm) was introduced into the tank, fish showed the following fright reaction in a few seconds; suppressing to feed diet, no swimming, strong chasing, and visual alertness. In detecting alarm substance, fish were mainly depending on the chemical stimulus (nares) rather than the vision stimulus (eyes) because fish detected alarm substance by the chemical cue showed the significantly stronger fright reaction than by the visual cue. The time for fish to show the initial fright reaction after detecting alarm substance by the chemical cue was shorter than by the visual cue. Also after alarm substance was introduced into the tank, olfaction-deprived fish showed significantly weaker fright reaction and less frequency of chasing than the normal fish which detected alarm substance by both olfaction and gustation stimulus. These results indicated that chemical stimulus, especially olfaction might be the primary sensory modality used in the detection of the alarm substance for giant danio.