Dangerously Smart: Why This Fish Almost Beached Itself

Thanks to Brilliant for supporting this episode of SciShow. Go to Brilliant.org/SciShow to check out their course on Infinity. [ ♪INTRO ] Imagine you’re walking along a rocky beach when, out of the blue, you see this forearm-length fish charge straight into the shallows. We’re talking water that’s less than 10 centimeters deep — where a fish /that/ big could easily end up beached. After a moment, the animal kind of flops its way back into deeper water. Then, it does it all over again. And this is exactly what fish researchers saw off the coast of Saudi Arabia in May 2018. So they started recording. And it turns out it wasn’t just any old fish — it was a titan triggerfish, a voracious and smart marine hunter. And what they had witnessed was the animal flexing its brain power to snag crabs from the shore. Venturing into very shallow water might seem like a poor choice for any fish. But that triggerfish was no fool. It had spotten a tasty treat just out of its reach. So, it figured out how to reach it. Which might sound pretty clever, because it is. And it’s right in line with what ichthyologists know about triggerfishes. For example, in the 1970s, German biologist Hans Fricke tested the problem-solving abilities of three yellow-spotted triggerfish he decided to call Odonus, Flip and Berta. He showed Odonus a delicious sea urchin, then put it in a glass dish under an opaque lid. It didn’t take the fish long to suss out the new materials and solve the problem to reach the treat. So, Fricke stepped up the difficulty: this time, the urchin went under a mesh container that had to be lifted or tipped. Then, he let Flip and Berta have a go at it. Once again, the fish got their rewards — but each solved the problem slightly differently! And they remembered what they learned. When he moved the set up to a new area and re-tried the test, they both reached the urchin much faster. To Ficke, that indicated they were smart enough to generalize their knowledge to new scenarios. On other dives, Ficke observed what appeared to be evidence for social learning in a different triggerfish species; in other words, the fish seemed to learn from one another. He came across five different individuals in a small area that all ate urchins in a totally unique way. Instead of flipping them over with jets of water like most triggerfish, they first bit off the spines — then hauled the urchins up towards the surface so they could nibble at the soft undersides as the denuded animals fell. It seemed unlikely that each of them figured this out separately. So, he concluded it was probably one fish’s idea — then, the other four watched and /copied/ the behavior. Now, the researchers aren’t sure if the beaching triggerfish they saw figured out its clever hunting tactic all by itself, or learned it from another fish. But no one has reported anything like it in any triggerfish species. And either way, it shows that the titan has some pretty impressive smarts. That may be because it’s got a big brain. See, the part of the fish brain called the telencephalon is relatively large in triggerfishes. And studies have linked larger telencephalons with better problem-solving abilities, at least in some species. Researchers have even suggested that if we really want to understand how cognitive abilities evolve, we should study fish instead of quote “smarter” animals like primates. That’s because fish are much more varied in their abilities, environments, and social interactions than primates are. So the clever tricks of triggerfish aren’t just cool to watch; they could help teach us a lot about how intelligence evolves. If all this talk of problem-solving and intelligence has you eager to add to yours, you might want to check out the STEM courses offered by today’s sponsor, Brilliant. They have more than /60/ of them, and they cover everything from algebra to cryptocurrency! And they’re all really fun, since they’re packed with problems to solve and even code writing. Take their new course on infinity, for example. In it, you build up from counting to understanding the uncountable through exercises and stunning visualizations. You can take it and all their other courses when you sign up for a Premium subscription. And right now, if you’re one of the first 200 people to sign up at Brilliant.org/SciShow, you’ll get 20% off! So check it out if you’re interested. [ ♪OUTRO ]

Channel: SciShow

Views: 186,447

Rating: 4.9506416 out of 5

Keywords: SciShow, science, Hank, Green, education, learn, Dangerously Smart: Why This Fish Almost Beached Itself, smart, fish, clever, intelligent fish, beach, ocean, Saudi Arabia, Mar Mar Island, sea, coast, titan triggerfish, triggerfish, Balistoides viridescens, Hans Fricke, Stefan Chin, Stefan, urchin, pray, hunt, skill, social learning, animal, Balistapus undulatus, orange-lined triggerfish, yellow-spotted triggerfish, brain, telencephalon, abilities, environments, social interactions

Id: Pjjk4irWn_o

Length: 4min 2sec (242 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 10 2020