Can Fish Do Math?

On April 1, 2022, University of Bonn Researchers announced that they have successfully taught fish how to do simple math. The students in this fish school were cichlids and stingrays. The researchers showed that the fish were able to perform simple addition and subtraction of the number 1, in the number range up to 5.

The leader of the research team, Vera Schluessel, a University of Bonn zoologist said that a previous studies showed that the fish can distinguish between quantities of 3 and 4 with only a glance, like the ways a human would know from a glance and without having to count, whether there are 3 to 4 jellybeans in front of them.

Previously, these scientists successfully performed a test to teach math to bees, using the color blue to mean add the number 1 and the color yellow to mean subtract the number 1.

The researchers stated that the Cichlids needed more sessions than stingrays to reach the learning criterion … Individual performance of stingrays exceeded that of cichlids.

The researchers’ findings were published in the March 31, 2022 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports.

Fish can do math, researchers say
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Rod Washington

Rod is a blogger, writer, filmmaker, photographer, daydreamer who likes to cook. Rod produces and directs the web series, CUPIC: Diary of an Investigator. He is also the editor, producer and administrator of STM Daily News, a part of the TNC Network.