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Contests over resources are a key facet of social behaviour and have received extensive theoretical attention. However, the assumptions and predictions of the theoretical models have rarely been tested experimentally in wild free-living vertebrates. Here, we look at resource contests in wild Neolamprologus pulcher, a cooperatively breeding cichlid fish that lives in permanent territories in Lake Tanganyika, Africa. To elicit a contest, we removed a dominant breeding male from his territory and held him for either a short (4.5 h) or a long (20 h) period. The original resident male was then returned to his territory, which typically resulted in an aggressive contest with a usurping male that had taken over in the original resident's absence. We found that contests were shorter than those previously observed in a laboratory setting, with more physically aggressive attacks. Contrary to our predictions, the relative size difference …