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| An ARCHER fish |
You probably know it already.
If you had been observing you fish aquarium and your fish, you must have observed something similar. The fish behaviors change when your spouse or kid goes close enough to the glass wall. May be, your fish rush towards the one that feeds them. But I always observe that they rush to that corner of the aquarium where I position myself.
If you have not tried it yet, try it now. You will be amazed at what you can see.
Your pet fish recognizes you, it can identify you among your family and friends.
When I read an article recently that quoted details from some "Scientific Reports" I was not surprised.
I planned this post after reading that. At the bottom of this post you ca find links to that article.
University of Oxford conducted an experiment and they used an archer fish for that. What they found out is nothing short of amazing. This fish, each time invariably, recognized the image that he was trained with.
The scientists used food as reward for each time the fish was successful.
The purpose of using an archer fish is that this fish shoots a water jet to the target it aims. So, each time the fish was shown the image it shot the water jet to the correct image. You can see that in the video.
The above image ( Image THREE) shows the how a monitor was placed above the fish tank with an open top. This monitor was used to display a variety of images with it's related "Distracter image," in pairs. The fish has to choose the correct one to earn a reward.
First Experiment
In this procedure, the complete image with which the fish was trained was displayed on the monitor with another image. The archer fish always recognized the original one. To make the task more complex, the Second Experiment was used.You can see the images used in the above graphics under "Image ONE" label. These images are in color.
Second Experiment
In this, the scientists used part of the original image and reduced them to black and white. You can see the images used in the above graphics under "Image TWO" label.In the video you can see how the fish hits the correct image with the jet.
Video in which you can see the Real Action
You can read other articles about this here and here.