Fish as Good as College Students in Numbers Test
Mosquitofish can "count" to a hundred but have trouble with ratios, study finds.
Mosquitofish, freshwater fish with a taste for mosquito larvae, are highly social. When a mosquitofish finds itself alone, its top priority becomes finding others. A previous study showed that the fish can, in fact, "count"—differentiating between numerical quantities in a lab experiment.
(Related: "Monkeys Can Subtract, Study Finds.")
The new study shows that the fish can not only tell the difference between small numbers such as 4 and 8, but they can also differentiate between quantities as large as 100 and 200.
"You just don't expect interesting results like this when dealing with animals like fish," said study leader Christian Agrillo of the University of Padova in Italy. "We thought this
