User:Benramp1/sandbox

Thigmotaxis (or "wall-hugging") is the specific behavior of maintaining contact with the edge of its environment, especially as the animals anxiety level increases. While most invertebrates do not explicitly display emotions such as stress or fear in the way that vertebrates do, thigmotaxis has been observed in invertebrates such as sea cucumbers. Open field tests have been conducted on sea cucumbers as well as other focal species such as mice and humans. The common consensus among these studies is that thigmotaxis causes not only the avoidance of wide open spaces, but an actual fear of those spaces. This fear is a behavioral adaptation to these open spaces which present little cover and therefore the animal is more prone to predators and harm.