ABSTRACT
Individuals of the same population differ in several ways. For instance, in fish populations, individuals who hatch earlier show more active behavior and are more explorative than those that hatch later, which is a characteristic of the behavioral personality type. One of the aspects relevant to this theory is the consistency of behavioral differences between contexts and over time. Thus, the present study evaluated the relationship between hatching time and behavioral consistency in two ontogenetic stages: juvenile and adult, and different contexts in zebrafish (Danio rerio). For this, the animals were separated according to hatching time into early-hatching (EH) and late-hatching (LH) fish and tested in an anxiety-like context (black-white paradigm) at the 30th-day post fertilization (dpf) and the 120th dpf. The animals were also tested in a novel tank paradigm and novel object paradigm to access explorativeness and boldness, respectively. In the black-white test, EH animals presented shorter latency to enter the white area and stayed longer in the black area than LH animals. The EH individuals were more explorative and bold in the novel tank and novel object tests and showed less anxiety-like behavior than the LH. In general, the results obtained suggest that hatching time may indicate consistent differences for zebrafish behavioral profiles.