Fish and Memory

[unirdna]

Do fish have good/poor memory?

If you were a fish (with a human intelligence), this question might feel like an insult. There are over 50,000 (and climbing, as our technology allows us to further probe the cracks, corners, and ass-end of the earth) species of fishes. Far more than all 4-legged animals combined. This means that a more precise question would be "do tetrapods have good/poor memory"?.

Imaging a forum for Atlantic Cod discussing this question... One cod one says "they have terrible memories, predators attack mourning doves, and the idiots return to the exact same spot within 5 minutes." Another says, "no way cod, elephants have 1000's of miles mapped in their heads, and can precisely return to any one of hundreds of places anytime they want; even if they haven't been there for years". A third cod pipes in, "humans are a bit strange. it seems that a single human can remember almost anything, but when you get them in groups, they continually make errors an individual would learn not to repeat".

Truth is, memory is one of the most primative forms of "intelligence". It was one of natures early upgrades - the CD-R to the CD-RW. Communication and problem solving (two things that rarely occur on public forums) are two far more derived elements of intelligence. Sarcasm, on the other hand, is widely considered the most primitive form of communication .

 

[portinfer]

Bonobo chimps are most like us and I think they share something like 99% the same genetic structure - I think you could have a blood transfusion from one without too much problem (but I could be wrong on that...) - at any rate they have been observed using tools, hunting with a strategy and in that respect are not dissimilar to spearos !

 

[grahamfoster]

hunting with a strategy

More advanced than most spearos then!!! rofl

 

[Oldsarge]

People who are horrified by the fact that common chimps (all five subspecies) hunt and engage in war like to think that bonobos (who like sex even more than people) are the closest relatives we have, but it ain't so. The common chimp is the more close, genetically. Behaviorally, too!

 

[naiad]

Truth is, memory is one of the most primative forms of "intelligence". It was one of natures early upgrades - the CD-R to the CD-RW.

I hadn't thought of it that way!

It is true that there are great differences between different types of fish. Most of the small tropical fish (tetras, danios etc.) don't seem to have any learnt behaviour. Some others, like cichlids, can learn and recognise each other.

The coldwater cyprinids (goldfish, carp etc.) are probably the best. I also read somewhere on Deeperblue that the crucian carp can live without oxygen for three months. Who says apnea is bad for your memory?

And in every tropical fish tank in a waiting room there is the inevitable pair of hillstream loaches. They clean the algae off the sides of the tank, and whoever bought the fish obviously thought that they would keep each other company. In fact they are strictly solitary and territorial, so one of them lives in fear of the other and learns to hide under plants and stones while the other can stay in the open.

Lucia