Clever fish

Nature, 26 May 2015. Animal behavior: Inside the cunning, caring, and greedy minds of fish. This is an article describing the remarkable discoveries about fish intelligence made by behavioral ecologist Redouan Bshary.

“Primate chauvinism may now be poised to decline, thanks in large part to Bshary’s fish work,” says primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. “They now really do have to take on board that most species are going to have a type of smart intelligence.”

“Redouan has thrown down the gauntlet to us primatologists,” says Carel van Schaik, an expert in orang-utan culture at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. “He has made us realize that some of the explanations of primate intelligence that we have cherished don’t hold water anymore.”

The word “cooperation” covers a wide range of rather different behaviors, though. Here is a video on what human toddlers and chimps can do in the way of cooperation. I yet have to see a fish recognize what I am trying to do and come to my help.