The fish “were able to operate the vehicle, explore the new environment, and reach the target, regardless of the starting point, all while avoiding dead-ends and correcting location inaccuracies,” said Shachar Givon and Matan Samina, who published the research along with Ohad Ben Shahar and Ronen Segev.

The study adds to a small cohort of literature in which animals are tasked with operating motor vehicles, with experiments performed in the past showing that rats and dogs can tootle around in specially designed cars.

But with the fish experiment, the Beersheba researchers say they have shown that navigation skills can be transferred from a marine environment to a terrestrial one, not unlike similar studies that tracked animal behaviors in zero- or low-gravity environments.