A team of researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel shows that fish can drive.... (probably better than the pathetic road hoggers).
This new video shows a goldfish driving a water-filled, motorized "car" from one end of a room to another, bobbing and weaving to avoid obstacles along the way. Scientists performed the odd experiment to better understand how goldfish navigate terrestrial environments. In the wild, goldfish and many other species must navigate to find food or shelter for survival. But it is not always clear how these animals learn to navigate a space and, for fish, whether the brain networks that allow them to navigate a coral reef would be of any use on land.
In the study, six goldfish were trained to pilot the FOV (Fish Operated Vehicle) . "Training was the easiest part," Givon (Doctoral Research student) said. "I simply put it in a situation where it learns what is going on around it." At first, each fish's movement was erratic as it swam from one side to the other in its roving reservoir. Eventually, Givon said, the fish began to connect the dots, and its movements became calmer and more deliberate.
"If you put a person in a car for the first time without telling them anything about it, they will realize that what they do with the steering wheel matters with which way the car goes. The same goes for the fish — it realizes this slowly, but all on its own.
Getting the fish to make the vehicle move is one thing; learning whether it can make sense of the environment around the vehicle is another matter entirely.
In the beginning, the trials were simple. The vehicle started in the center of a room, and Givon and her colleagues placed a pink cardboard square on the floor, away from the vehicle. If the vehicle moved across this pink square, the fish received a treat.
After a few days of this, the fish car went from meandering around the room to darting directly at the target. Once this task became trivial for the fish, Givon placed obstacles and fake targets in the arena in an effort to force the fish to adjust to changes in its environment. After getting used to these extra features, the fish were barely fazed by the obstacles.
This new video shows a goldfish driving a water-filled, motorized "car" from one end of a room to another, bobbing and weaving to avoid obstacles along the way. Scientists performed the odd experiment to better understand how goldfish navigate terrestrial environments. In the wild, goldfish and many other species must navigate to find food or shelter for survival. But it is not always clear how these animals learn to navigate a space and, for fish, whether the brain networks that allow them to navigate a coral reef would be of any use on land.
In the study, six goldfish were trained to pilot the FOV (Fish Operated Vehicle) . "Training was the easiest part," Givon (Doctoral Research student) said. "I simply put it in a situation where it learns what is going on around it." At first, each fish's movement was erratic as it swam from one side to the other in its roving reservoir. Eventually, Givon said, the fish began to connect the dots, and its movements became calmer and more deliberate.
"If you put a person in a car for the first time without telling them anything about it, they will realize that what they do with the steering wheel matters with which way the car goes. The same goes for the fish — it realizes this slowly, but all on its own.
Getting the fish to make the vehicle move is one thing; learning whether it can make sense of the environment around the vehicle is another matter entirely.
In the beginning, the trials were simple. The vehicle started in the center of a room, and Givon and her colleagues placed a pink cardboard square on the floor, away from the vehicle. If the vehicle moved across this pink square, the fish received a treat.
After a few days of this, the fish car went from meandering around the room to darting directly at the target. Once this task became trivial for the fish, Givon placed obstacles and fake targets in the arena in an effort to force the fish to adjust to changes in its environment. After getting used to these extra features, the fish were barely fazed by the obstacles.
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