I bet you've heard the expression “fish memory”, Is not it? These little critters aren't considered the smartest in the wild and are known to forget things quickly. However, this is not quite true, after all, some scientists have discovered that fish are capable of doing mathematical calculations.
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How was the research done?
In research carried out by the University of Bonn, Germany, fish of the species Zebra mbuna and some stingrays were able to perform simple math calculations. Through a series of tests, these animals proved capable of adding and subtracting on accounts with numbers from one to five.
On screens that showed a certain amount of geometric figures separated by blue or yellow colors, the animals had to add or subtract a unit, respectively. For this, as well as training with other species, rewards were used to stimulate the fish.
Therefore, when 3 blue squares (color that represents sum) were presented, the fish would have to add one more. To confirm your answer, you should swim to one of the two secondary screens that would be shown, one with four geometric shapes and the other with two. With that, all you had to do was go to the one with the most geometric shapes to get your reward.
In addition, to confirm whether they really had the ability to do math and not just recognize images with more figures, the fish were presented with other tests. In them, when presented with two squares, they should swim to the screen that added one more figure, the one with three. In these cases, their performance remained about the same.
How did the fish perform?
At the end of the research, the fish were able to get 78% of additions and 69% of subtractions right. Meanwhile, stingrays have shown themselves to be true math masters. After all, they got 94% of the additions right and 89% of the subtractions right. In the end, the results were very surprising for the scientific community.
That's because fish lack the part of the brain used by other mammals to perform complex tasks. Furthermore, no species of these animals is known to utilize any numerical ability in the wild.
