Can aquarium critters actually be “playful”???

[Magnum Man]

2 of the crabs are bubble surfing again…. Maybe they are trying to escape??? But they don’t spend any time on the surface, they hit bottom, and go right into the bubbles, just like kids at a carnival

 

[GaryE]

I figure play is doing something not directly related to survival for pleasure. I used to have zebra danios, a fish from moving water, and they loved playing in bubbles.

The flip side is if we misread and put a ping pong ball in a Betta tank for it to play with. The betta desperately tries to get rid of it as it interferes with his observation of the surface, where food lands. That to me isn't play, it's survival.

Our own play is tied into our instincts, and the play of fishes is tied to theirs. Intelligence in all its weird forms evolved early in the story of life, and playing is pretty basic stuff. There's a wrasse that if provided with a mirror and a chance to study itself in it, will then choose its own face from a wrasse photo lineup. If you put a spot on its photo, it will try to clean itself (its own body, not the picture) off. It won't react to photos of any other individual wrasse. So those wee brains in various small creatures may not be not so small...

I tried to show my fish how to play football/soccer, but they spent too much time diving.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

I tried to show my fish how to play football/soccer, but they spent too much time diving.

Wa wa wa waaaaaaaa

 

[sharkweek178]

I figure play is doing something not directly related to survival for pleasure. I used to have zebra danios, a fish from moving water, and they loved playing in bubbles.

The flip side is if we misread and put a ping pong ball in a Betta tank for it to play with. The betta desperately tries to get rid of it as it interferes with his observation of the surface, where food lands. That to me isn't play, it's survival.

Our own play is tied into our instincts, and the play of fishes is tied to theirs. Intelligence in all its weird forms evolved early in the story of life, and playing is pretty basic stuff. There's a wrasse that if provided with a mirror and a chance to study itself in it, will then choose its own face from a wrasse photo lineup. If you put a spot on its photo, it will try to clean itself (its own body, not the picture) off. It won't react to photos of any other individual wrasse. So those wee brains in various small creatures may not be not so small...

I tried to show my fish how to play football/soccer, but they spent too much time diving.

We often mistake some behaviors in animals as play. For example, it a house cat gets ahold of a mouse. Sometimes they don't kill them immediately. It looks like they are playing with the live mouse. But that's not what they're doing. The cat has an instinct that tells it that it might have regular access to food now, but it might not always be that way. There might be a time when it will have to hunt for subsistence. That same cat might not have the same opportunities to hunt and kill prey on a regular basis. So what it's doing with that mouse is not playing. It's training. It's practicing it's hunting and stalking techniques in case it ever needs to use them.
In the early part of the day, my neon tetras will chase each other around in what almost looks like dancing. They're not playing. They're really trying to establish dominance for the day.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Yeah, it all depends on how we define "play." But I do think most animals experience something similar to what we would call enjoyment or pleasure.

 

[Fishies4Ever]

I feel like they can be. Have you ever seen goldfish playing soccer? Don’t know how the trained them to do it but it’s defiantly very playful!

 

[Magnum Man]

Crabs were bubble surfing again, when I came home

 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

Crabs were bubble surfing again, when I came home

That's really cool! By the strict definition of "play" this may potentially qualify. Which would be really unusual outside of higher vertebrates. I do wonder if they are seeking the highest flow areas for filter feeding though? That may explain the behavior as well, and then it would not be "play". Still cool to watch though!

 

[GaryE]

A lot of people still think we're special and not animals. It affects how we see things.

There's a big difference between dressing the cat in an evening gown and thinking it likes Friends, and watching the cat be intelligent on its own terms. We're surrounded by intelligent life, but we have a hard time defining what intelligence is. Sometimes we play to learn, and sometimes we play because we find something fun. In my years as a language teacher, I have seen doctors and professors from tropical countries transform into playful puppies when the first snow fell. It's natural to find cool stuff and go crazy having fun with it. Why should that be exclusive to humans?

There's a growing sense among people who study behaviour that intelligence evolved very early. There is some very interesting info coming out on forest floor fungus networks and chemical communication, and it's only recently that apes with chemically communicating systems in our brains and nervous systems have had the courage to think about what this could mean.

Somehow we're prepared to accept the idea of hunting for ghosts but say other animals can't play and that it's silly to try to understand what their intelligences are. The idea fish can't feel pain is a classic - of course we like the idea if we're fishermen, but nervous systems are nervous systems.

If you think your Betta needs friends, then you're putting what you want to see ahead of what you do see. But if you think your Betta sets up in good ambush spots for that mosquito that never arrives at your tank, then you're seeing something. If you put it down to simple instinct - teach High School for a few years or people watch closely. Bettas are in good company.

I figure those inverts are looking for a good time in the bubble flow, like people jumping into waterfall pools.

 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

There is some very interesting info coming out on forest floor fungus networks and chemical communication

Agreed! I've worked on, now published, research about fungal communities in forests. Really cool stuff! Unfortunately, it gets turned into "proof" of Gaia hypothesis and related, and unsupported concepts. Still neat when you read the source material though!

We're surrounded by intelligent life, but we have a hard time defining what intelligence is. Sometimes we play to learn, and sometimes we play because we find something fun.

Totally! Intelligence encompasses a wide spectrum of capacities in animals - and plants, as well as other organisms! That said, play is much more specific. It's a facet of of my wife's research on learning, and learning like mechanism. Without going too far down the garden path, it's probably enough to say that intelligence ≠ capacity for play.

Regardless, I don't have enough evidence to argue either way with these crabs that are the subject of the thread. Still, just a really neat observation on @Magnum Man 's part!

 

[GaryE]

They could be too crabby to play.

Personally, for what it's worth, I see no new age concepts in any of this. Whatever it means and whatever people who look into it end up understanding, I like the fact more people are opening their minds to possibilities. People with all the answers scare me, but those with the capacity to ask questions and maybe not get answers are fun to be around.