Denise Chow, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 03 May 2013 Time: 10:18 AM ET
When fish fight over food, don't count the little guy out.
In hostile situations, a fish's personality — including how aggressive it acts — may matter more than size, according to new research.
The researchers from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and Texas A&M University in College Station studied how small fish managed relative to their larger peers when it came time for feeding. They found that small fish that exhibited aggressive behavior fared well in the feeding contests, regardless of their smaller stature.
"We wondered if we were witnessing a form of Napoleon, or small man, syndrome," Alastair Wilson, an evolutionary ecologist in the department of biosciences at the University of Exeter, said in a statement.
The findings, published in the April 2013 issue of the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, indicate that the strength of a fish's personality may be crucial when food is scarce.
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