[News] Odd Man Out, Do fish have personalities?

[Moontanman]

Odd Man Out, Do fish have personalities?

 

It’s like Hollywood in the fish room of the animal biology department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dave Ernst, the lab tech, points the camera through a peep hole in a black plastic drape towards a small fish tank, while behind him, postdoc Katie McGhee dips a net into a larger tank of juvenile three-spined sticklebacks, ready to pick out the day’s first star. “C’mon, who wants to be famous?” she clucks, transferring a fish via a plastic beaker to the smaller tank to be filmed. The camera rolls.

 

 

 

Odd Man Out - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

[modest]

I've noticed something roughly similar. When I change the filters or plant lilies or whatever I happen to be doing in my pond there are 3 black goldfish, 1 orange goldfish, and 1 koi who go all out to get investigatory and cozy with my hands. The rest of the fish (some of them from the same batche of eggs) either run for cover or ignore me completely. It seems like personality to me

 

~modest

[Moontanman]

Interesting new article in a special Discover magazine about the brain says that cephalopods have personalities too, they sleep, maybe even dream, have a handedness like mammals, use tools and even play. Good thing they are so short lived!