Jonathan Balcombe

An underwater exploration that overturns myths about fishes and reveals their complex lives, from tool use to social behavior

The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins

What a Fish Knows

Aileen Rese

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it is consistent with the laws of nature." - Michael Faraday

"When people use the word 'intelligence' what they usually mean is 'being able to think the same way I do'." - Vladimir Dinets

"For almost every feat of learning displayed by a mammal or a bird, one can find a similar example in fished." - Stéphan Reebs

Culum Brown suggests that warsses in particular may be the fishes' answer to the primates among mammals and the corvids (crows, ravens, magpies, and jays) among birds in having a greater-than-expected number of examples of tool use.

Brain size be damned, if it's critical to a species' survival then that species will most likely be good at it.

Aquariums illustrate what science demonstrates: fishes have social lives. They swim together; they other individuals by sight, smell, voice and other sensory channels; they choose and they cooperate.

Natural selection acts in variation across individuals, and for complex creatures with minds and social lives, personality is an expression of that variation. You don't have to have fur or feathers to have personality; scales and fins will suffice.

Good heavens, might we also consider that client fishes may retaliate because they have evolved emotions, including one of the most basic: rage? In light of the evidence for emotions in fishes, I feel comfortable interpreting a client's retaliation for the brazen blenny's nip as an angry one.

We may wonder how an animal with culture feels to be removed from his treasured locale.

Culture is not coded in genes, so once lost it is unlikely to be regained. "If you restore the fish populations, it might not be enough," says Giancarlo de Luca, a biohpysicist with the study team. "They have essentially lost their group memory."

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