Martin,
I suspect the term agonistic refers to the aggressive
display behaviour of males in tight quarters, since they seem to nest
communally. It’s not limited to display either. I saw the top nest
birds (at Kelly’s) pinching sticks from the lower left nest twice in a
few minutes!
Incidentally agonistic can also mean strained for the
sake of effect which I suppose could apply equally to display!
Shaun
From: martin butterfield
[
Sent: Friday, 26 December 2008 11:06 AM
To: COG List
Subject: [canberrabirds] Intriguing semantics
In looking through HANZAB to follow up some issues about the
behaviour of the Kellys' Swamp spoonbills I was struck by the term
"Agonistic Behaviour" since I have never come across the word
'agonistic' before. As the prefix 'ant' could mean "opposite"
as in antonym I assumed it meant the opposite of 'antagonistic' which
would suggest something like cooperation. However both the entries in
HANZAB and the definitions in the Shorter and Concise Oxford Dictionaries the
relevant definitions seemed to say both words meant 'competitive'.
I have come across some defniitions from both pharmacology (one turns on a
receptor, the other doesn't) and physiology (muscless which oppose each other
can be referred to as agonist and antagonist) where the two words have
different definitions implying some degree of oppositeness (if that is a
word). However I haven't been able to find such a pair of definitions
relevant to behaviour and wonder if anyone on the list can explain why the
competitive behaviour of birds is described as agonistic rather than
antagonistic.
Martin
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