Fish Facial recognition?

[NotSoAggressiveAquatics]

If couldn’t fond any articles on this so I was wondering, can fish recognize faces? Me and my dad are the primary care takers of my flowerhorn and whenever we come into the room or feed him he doesn’t react at all except for begging. But if my mom or brother come in who are rarely in the room he swims quickly the that side of the tank and sort of hits himself into the glass towards them like he’s mad. I don’t think it’s shirt color either because we all wore the same shirt color as a test and he still reacted the same ways

 

[MyFishAddiction]

I think to an exent, most fish have some sort of recognition, once I read somewhere that guppies could recognise up to 13 other fish, and so maybe humans too?

 

[jkkgron2]

I think that some of the more interactive fish will recognize certain humans. Goldfish definitely do. I’m not the one who feeds them and they don’t get that excited when I come in the room, but when the person who feeds them comes in they’re all over the place begging for food. My friend keeps bettas and they can recognize her.

 

[Catappa]

I know that my tropical fish recognize me and will hide from anyone else. I've always read that goldfish and Betta recognize faces and are perhaps most likely to interact with their keepers.

 

[NotSoAggressiveAquatics]

Well that interesting I didn’t know that before. I just wonder what makes him mad about them now?

 

[StarGirl]

Idk my female betta when she was in the 55g she would follow my hubs across the tank when he walked by too. He has never 1 time done anything with the tanks. She just hoped he would feed her too....I think it depends if they are food driven or not too....lol

 

[veggieshark]

I think it is some sort of shape recognition, rather than face recognition. They possibly tell the difference by our size and body shape. Most fish in the wild make a decision to stay or run away way before faces come close enough to be recognized.
And the way we move.

 

[WRWAquarium]

Hmmmmm all my fish must be mostly food driven. They all line up at the front of the tanks if me or my partner are standing in front of them. They have however learnt that the 3 boys are not worth bothering to beg too haha.

 

[ChrissFishes01]

I don't know that they recognize faces, but I think they can at least recognized different shaped people and body movements. My fish hide from visitors, but rarely do so if it's just me. It wouldn't make sense (IMO) for them to have developed any sort of human facial recognition, but I can definitely see it benefitting some fish to have the ability to differentiate between slightly different shapes (AKA different people) and adjust their reaction depending on if it's a familiar shape or not.

 

[BigManAquatics]

Thinking some fish can tell who is approaching the tank by the vibrations they make. I learned a long time ago that everyone makes different sounds while walking, so why not vibrations, too?

 

[veggieshark]

Thinking some fish can tell who is approaching the tank by the vibrations they make. I learned a long time ago that everyone makes different sounds while walking, so why not vibrations, too?

Possible. They have an incredible sense of hearing. I don't know if sensation of vibrations can be distinguished from sense of hearing, but they can feel ultrasound frequencies that would not be audible or sensible to us.

I like this idea of "sound/vibration signature" for humans; that would include size, shape and motion characteristics. (Can you fool the fish by carrying a vibration source around or playing music that would override your own noise?)

 

[BigManAquatics]

Possible. They have an incredible sense of hearing. I don't know if sensation of vibrations can be distinguished from sense of hearing, but they can feel ultrasound frequencies that would not be audible or sensible to us.

I like this idea of "sound/vibration signature" for humans; that would include size, shape and motion characteristics. (Can you fool the fish by carrying a vibration source around or playing music that would override your own noise?)

I know growing up, my bedroom was in the basement, and i could tell exactly who in my house was walking above me, and could tell exactly who several of the visitors were, too. Could do that with coworkers walking on concrete, too. Was always more of a subconcious thing, though.

 

[StarGirl]

I know growing up, my bedroom was in the basement, and i could tell exactly who in my house was walking above me, and could tell exactly who several of the visitors were, too. Could do that with coworkers walking on concrete, too. Was always more of a subconcious thing, though.

I can tell who is walking in the room at work by how they shuffle their feet or walk down the hall. lol

 

[veggieshark]

I know growing up, my bedroom was in the basement, and i could tell exactly who in my house was walking above me, and could tell exactly who several of the visitors were, too. Could do that with coworkers walking on concrete, too. Was always more of a subconcious thing, though.

I wish I had the time to experiment with this idea (for fish), sounds interesting.

 

[BigManAquatics]

I wish I had the time to experiment with this idea (for fish), sounds interesting.

Yeah...i would have to actively thinl about it while doing normal stuff so that wouldn't work at all lol

 

[Mudminnow]

I had an SAE that I gave to a LFS before a big move. Later, I stopped by the shop one last time. People were milling about the shop as usual. My SAE was in one of the tanks and did not respond to these people. But, when I approached the tank, it got excited and started begging for food. I don't know if it was my face or what, but somehow it clearly was able to tell me from the other people in the shop.

 

[applejax]

I know growing up, my bedroom was in the basement, and i could tell exactly who in my house was walking above me, and could tell exactly who several of the visitors were, too. Could do that with coworkers walking on concrete, too. Was always more of a subconcious thing, though.

as a computer science guy (now in technology management) I was always interested in this kind of thing to enhance or even replace passwords.

"I need access."
"Do you have your fish with you to confirm your identity?"

 

[ChitaBetta]

Fish can learn to recognise people, yes.
They don't need to learn to recognise faces, there are many factors that make people different; such as build/size/the movements you make. Things you might not even notice but your fish/other pets will do.

Fish are actually pretty smart animals and they do actually have good memories. Some can be taught tricks. They also learn that food comes in at the top of the tank and many will recognise when they are being fed, you can even teach your fish that if you tap the glass they will be getting fed (although this can also scare some fish).
My fish has learnt that the first thing I do in the morning when I get out of bed is feed them, they know approx what time I get up, so my Betta usually wakes up before me and watches me sleeping until I feed her. lol.

Depends on the species how well they can see, but most fish can see better when things are close up and less when they are further away. Some fish can see colours and lights better than others, depending on the species. For example; deep sea fish don't have good vision because they don't need to see in the dark.

Although fish (most) do not have the ability to hear, instead they have an sense organ called a lateral line, it runs along the side of every fish and it detects the vibrations in the water, so they probably will not recognise voices as they can't hear them....unless you scream at your fish tank lol.

Sounds like your fish recognises the people in your household and know who feeds them. Xp

 

[FishrFriends1]

Through research researchers have found that fish recognize each other and gather information by eavesdropping.

 

[Bettalover29]

If couldn’t fond any articles on this so I was wondering, can fish recognize faces? Me and my dad are the primary care takers of my flowerhorn and whenever we come into the room or feed him he doesn’t react at all except for begging. But if my mom or brother come in who are rarely in the room he swims quickly the that side of the tank and sort of hits himself into the glass towards them like he’s mad. I don’t think it’s shirt color either because we all wore the same shirt color as a test and he still reacted the same ways

I think to some extent they do have facial recognition. But the same thing happened to me. My mother and partner get the fish all excited and they ignore me.

 

[FishIord]

My platies are little food monsters lol. if anyone walks in the room they'll start begging until the person is out of sight. And no there under fed they're as healthy as ever.

 

[JLDJ]

Maybe like a lot of animals, they just learn what is harmful or good for them.
.
I made an observation in my little10 gal tank.
Originally, whenever I put a (clean) hand in the tank to gently rearrange a small stone etc. they wold most all dart for cover.
However, now it does not faze them at atl .

 

[peachsonas]

my bettas definitely could tell the difference between me and my boyfriend! we do look drastically different, so that could be it. my red betta pepsi definitely favored my boyfriend in the sense that he would never run away from his hand tracing the side of the tank. even though that was NOT the food source hand. he always ran away from me and not him.

 

[BunnieWarren]

I had a goldfish that would flip out like a puppy every time I entered the room. He would go even crazier if I would stare at him because then he knew it was time to be fed.
I've had some neon tetras for about a week now, and before I feed them I sit in front of the tank. In the last few days I've noticed that they started to do the same back and forth excited motion. They seem to be recognizing me too!
Or at the very least, they recognize that when something big is in front of the tank that they get fed lol.