Display behaviour is a set of ritualized behaviours that enable an animal to communicate to other animals (typically of the same species) about specific stimuli. Such ritualized behaviours can be visual, but many animals depend on a mixture of visual, audio, tactical and chemical signals. Evolution has tailored these stereotyped behaviours to allow animals to communicate both conspecifically and interspecifically which allows for a broader connection in different niches in an ecosystem. It is connected to sexual selection and survival of the species in various ways. Typically, display behaviour is used for courtship between two animals and to signal to the female that a viable male is ready to mate. In other instances, species may make territorial displays, in order to preserve a foraging or hunting territory for its family or group. A third form is exhibited by tournament species in which males will fight in order to gain the 'right' to breed. Animals from a broad range of evolutionary hierarchies avail of display behaviours - from invertebrates such as the simple jumping spider to the more complex vertebrates like the harbour seal.
In animals
Invertebrates
Insects
Communication is important for animals throughout the animal kingdom. For example, since female praying mantids are sexually cannibalistic, the male typically uses a cryptic form of display. This is a series of creeping movements executed by the male as it approaches the female, with freezing whenever the female looks towards the male. However, according to laboratory studies conducted by Loxton in 1979, one type of mantis, Ephestiasula arnoena, shows both male and female counterparts performing overt and ritualized behaviour before mating. Both displayed a semaphore behaviour, meaning waving their front legs in a boxing fashion before the slow approach of the male from behind. This semaphore display communicates that both are ready for copulation.
Flies belonging to the genus Megaselia also show such behaviour. Contrary to the typically female-selected mating that occurs for most organisms, these flies have females that show the display behaviour and males that choose the mate. Females have a bright orange colouring that attracts the male and also perform a series of fluttering wing movements that make the insect appear to "dance" and make the openings on their abdomens to swell in order to attract a male. There is experimental evidence that implies the female may also release pheromones that attract the male; this is an instance of chemical display behaviour that plays a large role in animal communication.
Auditory courtship behavior is seen in fruit flies like A. suspensa when they perform calling and pre-copulatory songs before mating. Both of these sounds are created by rapid flapping of the males wings.
Arachnids
Many arachnids show ritualized displays. For example, the arachnid family Salticidae consists of jumping spiders with keen vision which results in very clear display behaviours for courting in particular. Salticids are very similar in appearance to ants that live in the same area and therefore use their appearance to avoid predators. Since this similarity in appearance is so obvious, salticid spiders can use display behaviours to communicate both with members of their own species and also with members of the ants that they mimic.
Vertebrates
Birds
Birds commonly use displays for courtship and communication. Manakin birds (in the family Pipridae) in the Amazon undergo large demonstrations of display behaviour in order to court females in the population. Since males provide no other immediate benefit to females, they must undergo ritualized behaviours in order to show their fitness to possible mates; the female then uses the information she gathers from this interaction to make a decision on who she will mate with. This display behaviour consists of various flight patterns, wing and colour displays, and particular vocalizations.