Image: Fish called Cleaner Wrasse recognizes its reflection. Experiment in Konstanz, Germany / Photo Credit: Alex Jordan / Handout via Reuters.
Scientists reveal self-awareness of fish
German researchers discover through an experiment carried out with a mirror, that these aquatic animals recognize their reflection.
Disturbing findings about self-awareness in fish have been discovered by scientists in Konstanz, Germany.
There they carried out an experiment called mirror recognition, a technique developed in 1970 to measure the self-awareness of animals, which consists of the species reflecting itself in the mirror and distinguishing that it is itself.
On this occasion, the method consisted of applying a brown mark to the body of a fish, equal to the tone of the parasites that it commonly eats. Then, the animal was introduced into an aquarium with a mirror and it was analyzed that it did not attack itself.
Later, the scientists erased the brown hue from its body, and the fish did not try to attack itself either. According to the reaction, it was determined that he was able to recognize his reflection.
In this regard, Alex Jordan, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, and director of the study published in the journal Plos Biology, stated that the fish “shows behaviors during the mirror test that are accepted as evidence of self-awareness.”
However, he adds that the cognitive abilities of fish and other animals take different forms, which need to be reassessed.
In the publication, it is noted that the mirror recognition test has been passed on other occasions by “chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, dolphins, killer whales, elephants and magpie species. Other animals have not made it, and in the case of humans, they have passed it at around 18 months of age.
Research with fish has had responses of support or reluctance from different scientists, who open the discussion on animal self-awareness.
Article by:
Jackeline Gonzalez L.
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