From Jacques Cousteau to Finding Nemo
In 1952, Jacques Cousteau turned his ship Calypso into a mobile laboratory to observe sea life, and our understanding of the lives of fish changed forever. Cousteau’s work helped to bring about major improvements in the technology used to study marine life, and important scientific advances in the field of fish cognition were quick to follow.
Moving toward an understanding of the intricate social behavior of these intelligent animals since then has been a revealing (and often surprising) journey, and new scientific studies are constantly requiring us to reevaluate the old theories. The more we learn about these complex creatures, the more it becomes clear that we have vastly underestimated their capabilities.
The impressive advances in scientific knowledge about fish cognition were documented in a recent study by the biologists Culum Brown, Keven Laland, and Jens Krause for the journal Fish and Fisheries: "Although it may seem extraordinary to those comfortably used to pre-judging animal intelligence on the basis of brain volume, in some cognitive domains, fishes can even be favorably compared to non-human primates," the scientists observed.1
To reinforce this conclusion, Brown, Laland, and Krause cited more than 500 new studies of fish that show the animals’ advanced capacities for reasoning, memory, and social interaction. Fish are now known to be capable of using tools,2 recognizing and distinguishing between other fish in their shoals based on social hierarchy,3 and exhibiting impressive feats of memory and problem solving, such as recalling a specific escape route from a net up to 11 months after having learned it.4
We still have a lot to learn about the full range of capabilities that fish possess, but one thing is clear: They are far more intelligent than we had ever imagined.
Please join the Farm Forward mailing list to receive updates about our work and important information about how you can get involved.
- 1. "Scientists Highlight Fish Intelligence,” BBC News, August 31, 2003.
- 2. ibid.
- 3. Jens Krause, interview by Robert Siegel, All Things Considered, NPR, September 5, 2003.
- 4. Culum Brown, “Familiarity With the Test Environment Improves Escape Responses in the Crimson Spotted Rainbowfish,” in Animal Cognition, Vol. 4, No. 2, ed. T. Czeschlik (Berlin: Heidelberg, 2001).
