Do you think fish remember each other???

[GaryE]

@Seisage - our perceptions of ourselves really muddle understanding. The first thing I used to look for in fish was vision. Why? I'm a visual mammal. But how do they react with other senses, maybe ones we don't have? All I can see is you have to be smart enough to adapt to new situations and stay alive, which covers a huge amount of life. I wouldn't survive as a clam. Or maybe I would, because if I were a clam, I would have a clam's responses to its environment and I'd do just fine.

In my childhood, I was taught the king of the beasts, special human stuff, and it took a while to find other people who questioned that. It's much easier for curious people now, and we're begun to seriously pull back that curtain and look out at other species. I see that most intelligence research into other creatures looks for forms of our own reactions to the world, but I think it's useful (if limited) because it helps us understand our origins. If what we call human intelligence seems to have evolved quite early and taken different pathways in different life forms, then it adds a little to our understanding of ourselves. It would be great if we could develop that before we go extinct. It's a goal!

Online, I encounter a lot of people who would be horrified to be considered as animals. But I meet more and more who question the ideas I was raised with.

I think we have work to do to decide what human intelligence is, as it is so diverse. And we have to use what human intelligence we have to appreciate the brains of the creatures we grew beside. As a fishkeeper, I'm an omnivorous primate that likes to play with its food.

To paraphrase an old quote, the more I meet people, the more I like my fish.

 

[Magnum Man]

I had blind cave fish for a while 20 years ago... they are really amazing, when you look at some fish, who can see, yet struggle, meanwhile blind cave fish find food, interact with each other & other fish who can see, & manage to breed, without eye sight...

Blind Cave Fish - Denver Zoo

Classification Habitat & Range This species of fish lives in warm dark caves of freshwater rivers, lakes or pools. Blind cave fish are found throughout Central America. Blind cave fish … Continued

denverzoo.org

I looked at Elephant fish for a while, when I was getting my African tank going, & really any fish with sonar, must be more intelligent, than I am???

it's not too much of a stretch on a creature capable of having sonar, to having a memory...

 

[gwand]

Studies in sociobiology inform us about the importance of hierarchy in some animal species like fish. To maintain a social hierarchy there Has to be memory and recognition of group differences. I feel strongly that fish, at least certain species of fish have buddies and allies.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

So, you are young and not yet experienced in the way of the world. So you accidentally touch something hot that will result in your being burned. Nobody taught you to pull away your hand, you do so reflexively, Hopefully, you also learn not to touch that again. With a bit more brain power, you may even learn to apply this to another potential hot situation.

Here is what I do know. Most fish are hard wired to bolt when they see movement they do not recognize. But with my pleco breeding tanks I see something interesting. When I have a newly free swimming spawn, most of the fry stay in hiding. However, when I do tank maint. and water changes, I shut off anything making flow.

Apparently, the lack of flow results in a few of the babies becoming curious and they come out into the open. I will see a few of them darting about until I am done working and I begin to refill the tank and then to turn the flow back on as the water levels become adequate. During the process the fry all vanish back into hiding. More interesting is the fact that, after a couple of weeks, none of them are coming out.

There are no predators in the tank as I do species tanks for spawning and growing out plecos. So there are no real threats to the babies. What explains the 2 or 3 out of 20 or more toe come out and what causes them to stop doing so? The only explanation I can formulate is that the hiding reflex is a hard wired thing but in a few babies it takes a bit longer to kick in?

Look at my current sig. and I think this explains what motivates a lot of fish. Every living thing needs to eat in some fashion. How do they learn this? They need to spawn to insure the species survives. How do they learn this?

In researching schooling behavior it turns out that the fish basically copy what those couple of fish closest to it are doing. There is also a difference between schooling and shoaling. Basically schooling is intentional while shoaling is more situational. When we feed our tanks the fish all are out and eating together. This is an example of shoaling. When the food is gone the fish scatter. Schooling is mostly a defensive behavior.

When I did a search using Google Scholar for "schooling behavior in fish" I got back "about 453,000 results (0.06 sec)" So you tell me if fish learn or are hard wired to school.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,33&q=shchooling+behavior+in+fish&btnG=

The one thing I did learn is that specific recognition of the other individual fish in the school was not a factor. Just doing what the nearby one or two other fish are doing is what caused the other fish to move in the same way.

 

[sharkweek178]

I have a couple albino Cory’s, that were among some of the 1st fish I bought, when restarting my tanks, about a year and a half ago… about half way to today, I started doing regional tanks, and my Cory’s got moved the 1st time, since then, they have been moved a half dozen times, and separated… now that I’m doing a South American tank on sand, my remaining 2 of them got back together this morning… they are acting like old buds, maybe it’s just the nature of Cory’s, or maybe they remember each other???

I’m sure there are other stories of fish getting separated, and put back together, after some time has passed… so what do you think, are they capable of remembering each other???

They're a social schooling fish. So they'll be drawn to each other whether or not they shared a space before.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

By our definitions, "intelligence" manifests as behaviors like complex social structures, solving of specific kinds of (human-designed) puzzles, or self-recognition in mirrors (wow, just like humans do! Funny coincidence, huh). But why? Why should that be what is considered intelligent? Why is a relatively "simple" response to light or touch not intelligent? ...

Because, again, what really is "intelligence"? Ultimately, it's a measure of how similar an animal's cognition is to humans. It's not truly meaningless, of course. An animal's similarity to humans is an interesting thing (to us, the humans). But "intelligence" is treated as a set of standards that can apply to everything, as if every animal can have its intelligence measured, and that's just not the case. Because intelligence is standardized on human behaviors, and we are so different from most animals, our baselines simply cannot be applied to most of them. Essentially, a dolphin is only considered more "intelligent" than a worm because a dolphin's behaviors are more similar to ours than a worm's are.

Oxford defines "intelligence" as "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills." By definition, it really isn't a quality measurement; it's just a different approach to the problems of survival. I agree that we tend to admire animals who are more like us; that's probably normal and natural. But the real fascination begins when we notice that there are many other approaches besides intelligence.

I admire a bamboo shrimp's efficiency in straining a living out of the water. It isn't intelligent; it's just doing what its instincts tell it, and it's very good at it. But if conditions don't meet its needs, it ups and dies.

Compare that to my wild-caught loaches, who, upon being introduced to a new environment, begin actively exploring, figuring out food sources that have little resemblance to what they eat in the wild, developing social hierarchies, figuring out what is a threat and what isn't, and learning to interact with this enormous, moving object that appears outside the glass right before food arrives.

One is demonstrating intelligence: It is acquiring and applying new knowledge and skills. The other is simply finding a good spot in the current to live out its instincts. But both are very good at what they do, and both are beautiful in their own ways. Vive la difference!

 

[Oldspartan]

I think one definition of intel is the ability to adapt your surroundings to meet your needs. Humans, so far have been able to that and then make more changes to offset unintended consequence.

Second measure is the ability to anticipate how an artificial change will affect what happens later. This second pillar can be offset by inertia or convenient disbelief.

To my knowledge, admittedly thin, no other critter has both of those pillars.

 

[gwand]

Intelligence or intelligent? I think all life forms possess some form of intelligence and conscious awareness. Even single cell organisms. However few creatures on earth are intelligent.

 

[Oldspartan]

Does awareness count as smarts?

 

[gwand]

There is no intelligence without self awareness.IMHO

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I think all life forms possess some form of intelligence and conscious awareness. Even single cell organisms.

You never met my wife's cat.

 

[GaryE]

Yeah, but there's no self awareness without intelligence. And it's really hard to judge self awareness even if it's right in front of us. I think this may be something we have to follow as research rolls along. I've read about fungal networks possessing intelligence, and it was well argued. All I can figure is I'll try to keep my options open, read as much as I can, and see where it takes us.

Corys may well recognize each other, which kind of goes with an awareness they are themselves. If the goal is just to eat each other, then no. But if it's to function in their social grouping, hmmm. They may flunk our visual mirror test, but I'd be bad at Cory hormone reading.

 

[Velvetgun]

Sorry for my bad English.
As someone obsessed with emotions, with learning dogs, I love these discussions!!
For example,i see so many videos of dogs reuniting owners and dogs after years of separation and the dog is initially wary, doesn't visually recognize the old owner or even his voice, at a certain point the spark linked to the smell goes off and he goes crazy with joy (something I verified as a breeder on puppies raised by me and then given away).
We often evaluate intelligence in a way that is too human. If we think about it, there have been people who have helped human progress with discoveries who in other fields were instead considered stupid.
Even dogs, until recently, we only talked about muscle memory, we worked in constant stimulation thinking that they learned only through continuous repetition, while instead they love working in shaping, actively participating in the understanding of an exercise and, coincidentally, the behaviors learned from a dog who proposed them himself remain more impressed and are more intense and motivated.
Most of my work on sports dogs is related to work on the emotional sphere, which is too underestimated.
In my opinion, with fish and many other animals we are only at the very beginning of understanding instincts, relationships, emotions.
In the end we like to think we are superior..

 

[GaryE]

I'm a carnivore, to a degree, as I write this. It would be much easier for me to accept a belief system that said I was the only "intelligent" species out there. If I had power over other species and they were there for me, that would be great. I can see why people believe that. No one ever got poor telling people what they want to hear.
But instead, I think we have to accept other creatures think. We have to look at nervous responses in plants. We have to be aware that something we call intelligence seems to have developed early in the evolution of life. If it is in the interests of another creature to recognize individuals, it probably can. If it couldn't, it would be extinct, or would have evolved a completely different social structure.
Compared to other animals, I have decent vision and hearing (not the best), but a lousy sense of smell (even if I cultivate it). I have different colour vision, and can't process infrared, for example. Does that make me appear unintelligent to other species?
I manipulate my dog to direct her behaviour, but she wasn't standing in her pyjamas at the end of a leash at 5 AM this morning.
She's smart enough to manipulate me, too. Hopefully, she sees it as being as mutually beneficial as I do. Is she my equal, as an ant or a fish could be? We're all alive, so yeah. We're all in this together, different but.

We like to complain about overthinking stuff, and I can be accused of that. But underthinking is also a problem.

 

[Fishfunn]

I think it is interesting that fish remember what food they usually eat, when you switch to a different food, they hesitate or refuse to eat it. That is my thought. Also, they do recognize us; at least my discus does.