Three Second Fish Memory 'Just Rubbish'; Learning And Memory 'Quite Sophisticated'

Three Second Fish Memory 'Just Rubbish'; Learning And Memory 'Quite Sophisticated'

Source: Underwatertimes

1/14/2010

Australia -- Have you heard the one about gold fish having only a three second memory - by the time they swim around the bowl, they’ve forgotten where they are and swim around again?

“It’s absolute rubbish,” says Dr Kevin Warburton, an adjunct researcher with Charles Sturt University’s Institute for Land, Water and Society who has been studying fish behavior for many years.

“There’s been a lot of work done over the last 15 years on learning and memory in fish and it as been found that fish are quite sophisticated. Fish can remember prey types for months; they can learn to avoid predators after being attacked once and they retain this memory for several months; and carp that have been caught by fishers avoid hooks for at least a year. That fish have only a three second memory is just rubbish.”

Dr Warburton, whose research has focused on Australia’s freshwater fish, particularly local native fish in South East Queensland, has run experiments looking at how Silver Perch learn how to handle different types of prey.

“What came out, unexpectedly, was that while they were learning about their prey, their foraging efficiency went down,” said Dr Warburton. “With one type of prey, the fish got more and more efficient at catching their food, but when we put two different types of prey in together, their overall efficiency dropped. We think it was because of they suffered from divided attention. It’s a cost of learning.”

Another example of fish memory was that fish can learn to avoid predators after being attacked once – this memory was retained for several months.

Dr Warburton said fish also exhibit behaviors that we tend to think as human.

Minnow, Bluntnose

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