Effects of blindness on play fighting in golden hamster infants

The effects of bilateral optic enucleation on play fighting in golden hamster infants were studied. The behaviors of blind-blind (BB), blind-intact (BI) and intact-intact (II) dyads were recorded from the 30th to the 36th day of age. It has been noted that the differences in physical contact, play fighting and grooming time, as well as in the percentage of time spent in play fighting, the amount of locomotion and other activities of BB, BI and II were small and statistically insignificant. The mean number of active and passive pinning in all groups was equivalent and the alternation of active and passive pinning, or vice versa, was around 50%, showing that posture during play fighting is not an indicator of dominance. It has been concluded that vision is not important for either the initiation or the modulation of play fighting in golden hamsters.