Animals & nature · 2015
Do fish respond differently to images of familiar and unfamiliar faces?
Yes. In an experiment with the social fish Neolamprologus pulcher, fish attended longer to digital images with unfamiliar faces and stayed farther from them than from images with familiar faces. The images combined familiar and unfamiliar face and body colors, and the results strongly suggest that facial color patterns help these fish recognize individuals.
Details
Recognizing other individuals can matter in social interactions, but behavioral evidence of recognition does not by itself reveal which cues animals use. Researchers tested facial cues in Neolamprologus pulcher by presenting digital images with different combinations of familiar and unfamiliar face and body colors.
The fish's responses differed according to whether the face was familiar: they attended longer and from farther away when the face was unfamiliar. This strongly supports facial color patterns as a cue for individual recognition in this species. The observations also suggested that the fish could distinguish familiar from unfamiliar individuals within half a second.
These were responses to digital images, not encounters with live fish. The findings support recognition based on facial patterns in this species; they do not establish the same ability in fish generally.
What do you think?
Good conversations begin with curiosity.
You can read comments without an account. Sign in to write.
Loading comments…