Don’t mention any of your passwords while you’re standing near the fish tank. You may come home to find your computer’s been hijacked by your goldfish.
You might feel safe talking about private matters near your pet fish, thinking that they will have forgotten all about it in six seconds, but don’t be fooled, they do remember and it took a 15 year old named Rory Stokes to prove it.
Rory’s findings were reported a couple of days ago in this article at News.com.au. He proved that pet fish have a memory that lasts at least six days and possibly longer.
A 15-year-old South Australian school student has busted the myth that goldfish have a three second memory.
Rory Stokes, from the Australian Science and Mathematics School in Adelaide, conducted an experiment to test the commonly held theory that goldfish have short memory spans.
I always knew that the short term memory thing was an urban legend. The fish in the big tank at work rush towards the glass when they see a human heading their way first thing in the morning. They know that a human will feed them in the morning. Once they’ve been fed they ignore any other people wandering past for the rest of the day.
One of the things Rory wanted to demonstrate is that it’s cruel to keep fish in small tanks. The short term memory theory was always a good excuse when people wanted to put fish into a tiny container. They would use the excuse that fish weren’t aware of their cramped environment becuase it looked new to them every six seconds.
I will admit that I’ve never understood the attraction of keeping fish anyway. I think they make a darn good meal but they’re not my idea of a pet.
Now all we need is to find a way for fish to communicate with us. They might then be able to remind us of the things we forget. If their memory lasts for six days or more, that’s about five and a half days longer than some people can remember where they’ve left their keys.
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Oh, fish make great pets. I know many people think they’re boring but they’re actually very relaxing to watch.
A darn good meal? Maybe to Prince Harry 😉
I wonder is it a myth also that fish don´t feel pain?
I think different pets suit different people. Sarah, I’m glad you enjoy fish as pets. I know that several of the people at work enjoy having a tank of fish in our foyer.
As for the meal … I was thinking of something a little bigger than goldfish. 🙂
Iris, I would suspect the idea that fish don’t feel pain is a myth but maybe I need to investigate. I would imagine it’s a story created to make fishermen feel better about what they do.
I´ll tell Ingo – he loved to (try to) catch fish a lot in Carnarvon and Broome. I once heard fish don´t feel pain, cause they are a very old species and don´t have “room” for that…