Copyright: Guardian
Are fish really more intelligent than monkeys?
Alok Jha
Thursday September 4, 2003
The Guardian
There is certainly more evidence for intelligence in fish than in monkeys. But this has more to do with the volume of research on fish, work that is sometimes hard to do on monkeys.
"If you make a big list and have a look at all the evidence for advanced cognition, the evidence is far more convincing for fish than it is for primates," says Culum Brown, a biologist at Edinburgh University and co- author of a report this week on how intelligent fish really are. "That's primarily because most of the primate literature is based on anecdotal evidence and brief observation."
Gone are the days when fish were thought to float around without much regard for their environment or other fish. According to Brown, fish are "steeped in social intelligence". They pursue Machiavellian strategies of manipulation, punishment and reconciliation and cooperate to avoid predators or catch food.
They can identify their shoal-mates, recognise the social status of other fish, use tools, build complex nests and even navigate mazes. And, to put the most persistent fish heresy to bed, they even have impressive long-term memories. Brown cites his own recent research finding that fish remembered the location of a hole in a fishing net nearly a year after first learning about it.
Apocryphal tales of goldfish having memories that last a few seconds seem mainly designed to make people feel better about keeping them in small featureless bowls. To prevent your fish getting bored, Brown suggests changing its environment from time to time. The fish may recognise the rock you have moved, but the fact that it's in a different place is always interesting to it, Brown says.
Paul Honess, a primatologist at the Oxford of University, is surprised that biologists would claim primate-like intelligence for fish. "If the only evidence is quantity of research, then that's no evidence at all," he says.
Brown says he is not arguing that fish are more intelligent than primates per se, but that they are more intelligent than we thought.