Whoever said fish had no memory?

HI everyone. In an attempt to educatedly defend my finned little friends, I started doing looking up stuff on fish memory on the internet.

I came across a funny article called the 'hidden life of fish' from fishinghurts.com. Here's some extracts for when your friends start teasing you about how dumb your pets are:

"that fish are “steeped in social intelligence, pursuing Machiavellian strategies of manipulation, punishment and reconciliation … exhibiting stable cultural traditions and cooperating to inspect predators and catch food.” (them quoting a 'fish and fisheries' article)

“Fish are more intelligent than they appear. In many areas, such as memory, their cognitive powers match or exceed those of 'higher' vertebrates, including non-human primates.” (them quoting an article by Culum Brown)

"Fish have a memory span of at least 3 months" Them quoting a Dr Phil Gee

OK 'fishing hurts' would be a little biased, but hey, still nice snippets. Could you let me know if you find more research about fish memory, subject I know zero about and would love to learn more on?

 

OK, here's another one. This one from St Andrew university: "Fish not only recognise individual shoal mates, but also monitor the social prestige of other fish and track the relationships of other individuals. They also use tools, build complex nests and can even exhibit impressive long-term memories"

 

Cool! ;D

 

I reckon in our home its me with the 3 second memory, not the fish ;D!!! also they certainly know who feeds them! they go loopy when I go nr the tank at feeding time so they must remember who I am!
tan

 

Yeah, they definitely recognise familier faces.

 

I reckon in our home its me with the 3 second memory, not the fish ;D!!! also they certainly know who feeds them! they go loopy when I go nr the tank at feeding time so they must remember who I am!
tan

... um.. what was I going to type here 3 seconds ago ???

yea, I think fish are more intelligent than many realize.. we've seen some very interesting behavior out of our fish that I didn't expect before we got our 1st betta.

 

lol you're older then me, your memory must be just 2 seconds long!!

 

My memory is appalling. If I don't look, I don't know what I'm wearing half of the time! My grand-mother is always complaining about loosing her memory, and here's me never knowing what I came in a room for.

 

...and here's me never knowing what I came in a room for.

I do that ALL the time! I dash upstairs, stand on the landing looking at the doors trying to figure out why i'm there and what I wanted and what room I should be in. the moment I get back down stairs i've remembered! i'm 29.......it can only get worse.....

 

It's terrible, isn't it? I've got quite a cerebral job and I can't believe havent' spotted my appalling memory yet. Am also really bad with faces and names, and that's really embarrassing. Ah well, it's good, as I can watch a movie 10 times and I'll still have a surprise ending!

 

It's terrible, isn't it? I've got quite a cerebral job and I can't believe havent' spotted my appalling memory yet. Am also really bad with faces and names, and that's really embarrassing. Ah well, it's good, as I can watch a movie 10 times and I'll still have a surprise ending!

that's so true!! the amount of times people tell me I have seen the film before and i'm convinced I havent!! i've started a job at a school so I have 60 teachers to learn first and surnames and 120 kids in my year to learn! its a nightmare!!

 

LOL.. talk about bad with names - i've worked months with people and not been able to remember their names - and that's at a small company too. I do what tan does too - stand there going "why'd I come over here?".. lol.. maybe I'll train our bettas to remember things for me.

 

LOL. That's what I've done with my boyfriend (train him to be my memory), no reason it shouldn't work for fish. That's actually what I call him when I need something reminded: 'Memory? Do you remember bla bla bla'. I heard men liked to feel useful, only thinking of him.

 

LOL. That's what I've done with my boyfriend (train him to be my memory), no reason it shouldn't work for fish. That's actually what I call him when I need something reminded: 'Memory? Do you remember bla bla bla'. I heard men liked to feel useful, only thinking of him.

oh.. hmm.. I don't mind not being useful.. i'm ok being a slug.

 

Us women are brought up under the impression that you boys love to do DIY and general repair work. It always surprises me when I (re-)discover that that is not the case. Oh, he's here reading over my shoulder and interjecting: "I do like DIY. Just not continuously"

 

Us women are brought up under the impression that you boys love to do DIY and general repair work. It always surprises me when I (re-)discover that that is not the case. Oh, he's here reading over my shoulder and interjecting: "I do like DIY. Just not continuously"

I don't believe in DIY.. since I was born with no abilities to DIY anything that works.

 

lol! i'm training my kids to be my memory!! only thing is they're already catching on to invent memory.....things like "dont you remember...you said you'd give us some of your chocolate?"! like i'd ever say something like that!!!
I thought men liked to do useful things to make them feel "important" and "required"! my hubby also says I give him more jobs to do than what is humanly possible!!!
I wouldnt trust my diy!! hence the respect I have for timg on here! he'll try anything - and succeed! i'd try, be a disaster then give up and feel a failure!!
my fish remind me to feed them...so i'm training them too in a way one step at a time! my filter stops blowing bubbles when the tank needs cleaning, so the tank "reminds me" to do stuff too!
tan

 

You should check this out. It's great! This guy taught his goldfish awesome tricks!

 

yea, that is video proof that fish have long memory, and that they're very trainable.

 

I'm going to carry through my fish school project for sure. I just need to get the fish (betta)! If you have any ideas of nice tricks to try to teach them, let me know.

 

how about teaching them to reply to my emails for me.

I like the tricks in that vid and maybe teach one to play with a ping pong ball.. like popping it up into the air or pushing it along the surface.

 

Or swim upside down a couple of time for a wafer, and left/right for flakes!

 

You might want to check discovery.com/mythbusters

They did an experiment on training goldfish. I found it extremely interesting.

 

I just saw that episode, darkwolf. Within an hour of getting the fish, they had already busted the myth of the three second memory, but continued with the experiment.
My fish have all busted this myth as well. They've all learned things that prove that fish have more than 3 second memories.

 

What do they do, Sirdarksol? I am curious.

Thanks, Darkwolf. Would you have the exact link? I went on mythbusters and did a search for goldfish but nothing really came up.

 

I just saw that episode, darkwolf. Within an hour of getting the fish, they had already busted the myth of the three second memory, but continued with the experiment.
My fish have all busted this myth as well. They've all learned things that prove that fish have more than 3 second memories.

lol.. ours do that every day when feeding time is near.. even before the food is out, they're dancing for it because they recognize & remember things we have done before feeding them. I have to wonder where such a stupid myth came from.

 

Miyamoto recognizes my footsteps. He dances different when I enter the room. He's dancing even before he can see me. I presume this is because I feed him. He doesn't dance like this when my wife is in the room (although he does still dance for her). The goldfish knows to follow Miyamoto for the best bits of food. The barbs know that when Miyamoto is near the feeding ring, they should get ready to dart in over his head (I've seen them actually leap through the ring, landing back on the outside of the ring, trying to get at the food), and the glass fish has learned that when Miyamoto is hanging around near the feeding ring, it should wait on the other end of the tank, where I always drop a piece of food in because he often doesn't get any from the ring.
It took KeijI about two days to learn that the top of his tank opening means food time.

 

that's a good point.. they remember us and tell the difference. A couple of our Bettas get MUCH happier to see my wife than me and will leave me in a second to swim over to where she is.

 

Speaking of fish memory capacity, anybody remember the movie 'Orca' ?.. now that was a Killer-Whale with some serious memory abilities, much to the regret of the fishermen it was tracking for revenge!

 

lol.. yea.. well look at the memory Jaws had.

 

Oh yeah, totally. And his size and endurance, and .. explosive abilities.

I watched Jaws I again recently. WHAT a classic. I love it!

 

Orca was awesome! I loved it. Really freaky when the girl with the broken leg (or was it the guy?) slowly slides down into the mouth of the whale!

Speaking of fish memory capacity, anybody remember the movie 'Orca' ?.. now that was a Killer-Whale with some serious memory abilities, much to the regret of the fishermen it was tracking for revenge!