Since we are talking about habits of some fish and species in a few threads, I thought I'd ask this question:

What is the most inquisitive native fish you've kept? Myself bluegills seem to be the most inquisitive and I've also notice they do a lot of observing before they bite a bait under the ice.

I know wanting food could be mistaken for inquisitiveness, but I've observed bluegill in my tanks all face me and observe whatever I do regardless if it's feeding time, I'm doing a water change, or something else. My yellow perch don't even observe me even just before feeding. They just show up suddenly when the feed goes in.

Thoughts?

My pygmy sunfish, pygmy killifish and least killifish like to explore my tank. When I had rainbow darters they acted almost like they were bearded dragons.

Since we are talking about habits of some fish and species in a few threads, I thought I'd ask this question:

What is the most inquisitive native fish you've kept? Myself bluegills seem to be the most inquisitive and I've also notice they do a lot of observing before they bite a bait under the ice.

I know wanting food could be mistaken for inquisitiveness, but I've observed bluegill in my tanks all face me and observe whatever I do regardless if it's feeding time, I'm doing a water change, or something else. My yellow perch don't even observe me even just before feeding. They just show up suddenly when the feed goes in.

Thoughts?

Since we are talking about habits of some fish and species in a few threads, I thought I'd ask this question:

What is the most inquisitive native fish you've kept? Myself bluegills seem to be the most inquisitive and I've also notice they do a lot of observing before they bite a bait under the ice.

I know wanting food could be mistaken for inquisitiveness, but I've observed bluegill in my tanks all face me and observe whatever I do regardless if it's feeding time, I'm doing a water change, or something else. My yellow perch don't even observe me even just before feeding. They just show up suddenly when the feed goes in.

Thoughts?

for me it would be the grass pickerel. as a fish i have kept but inquisitive no fish i have are like that.
be it a small pike but a heart of a pitt bull. always ready to eat and never leaves the atack mode.with a 1/4mile "click" glare in its eyes for life!

Hmmm........At first I was tempted to say my smallmouth bass because he's always got his eyes on me. He swims to the front to meet me even if he's not that interested in food. It's as if he thinks I'm interesting too. He finds small children very interesting and gets as close to them as possible while his stripes and spots become quite pronounced. He seems to enjoy watching video games(his favorite is grand turismo 5). He's also keen to observe what he's taking before he eats it, and will only eat from my hand if there are no strangers in the house.

Even with all the personality my smallmouth has, I have to say that my most inquisitive fish is my longear sunfish male. He just seems to find almost anything interesting. In the middle of a complete tank rearrangement he came to the front to check out different pieces of driftwood as I sized them up. His most amusing inquisitive action is his fascination with printed text. If I hold up a book in front of the tank with the pages open to nothing but printed text, he comes up and checks it out. His eyes move from side to side and often from top to bottom. After a minute or so he swims off. If I turn the page he stays and "reads" the next couple of pages. It seriously looks just like he's reading. I've never tried to keep it going any longer than that because I'm either laughing too much or I just feel too silly standing there holding a book for a fish to read.

Most of my fish seem to be inquisitive in some way or another, but the one that seems to study things the most in a way that doesn't appear to be aggression or food related is the longear.

Steve.

Edited by frogwhacker, 22 December 2011 - 09:41 PM.

He seems to enjoy watching video games(his favorite is grand turismo 5)...

If I hold up a book in front of the tank with the pages open to nothing but printed text, he comes up and checks it out. His eyes move from side to side and often from top to bottom. After a minute or so he swims off. If I turn the page he stays and "reads" the next couple of pages. It seriously looks just like he's reading.

Now this is seriously interesting. What the heck is going on? Maybe they like the stimulation. Try putting a TV at the end of the tank and see how much time they spend in front of it watching TV. Any other strange behavior observed by others?

I believe in intelligence in animals. My 24 year old Yellow Nape Amazon vocalizes a lot and in every case he says things at the appropriate moment. He says hello when we enter the house and good-by when we are leaving. He cries when we are not paying attention to him and yells "HEY" at us in increasing volumes when he wants attention. When we tell him to shut up he starts crying and says "Bad Girl, Bad, Bad Girl". When he wants out of the cage he says "Want to go outside." When he wants to see himself in the mirror he says "lets go see friend" and when I put him up to the mirror he says "Hi, Friend". When he wants a bath he says "Get in the water - take a shower". These things he says are not random. They are said appropriately and provide a limited ability to have a conversation with him. In addition, I use a two tier latching mechanism in two locations on the cage door. He easily worked out which ones to get undone first then the second to open the door.

Has anyone done fish intelligence tests?

Usil

Edited by Usil, 22 December 2011 - 11:11 PM.

Now this is seriously interesting. What the heck is going on? Maybe they like the stimulation. Try putting a TV at the end of the tank and see how much time they spend in front of it watching TV. Any other strange behavior observed by others?

Usil

Probably not best to do it during Shark week or River Monsters Unhooked though.....

Now that is funny. And that would be a good test to see what happens. When the shark drives forward maybe they will dive for cover.

Usil

Now that is funny. And that would be a good test to see what happens. When the shark drives forward maybe they will dive for cover.

Usil

Actually got another story of something similar. This one involves my inquisitiveness and I'm somewhat ashamed of it. I've got a mounted 12 pound largemouth bass on my wall that my grandpa caught years ago in Florida. It's mounted, as is usual for largemouths, with the mouth wide open. I thought it would be interesting to show it to my smallmouth to see what happens. He was quite OK with it until I turned the mount with that big mouth aimed right toward him. Man, that smallie nearly came out of the tank trying to get away from it. It was a massive explosion of chaos. I felt just terrible for scaring him like that. I normally try very hard to keep him calm so he doesn't ram the glass or jump out. I did learn that it's the sight of the mouth instead of the size of the fish that scares them though. Another lesson learned, and at least there was no permanent damage done, but a really dumb move on my part.

Steve.

Edited by frogwhacker, 22 December 2011 - 11:40 PM.

Since we are talking about habits of some fish and species in a few threads, I thought I'd ask this question:

What is the most inquisitive native fish you've kept? Myself bluegills seem to be the most inquisitive and I've also notice they do a lot of observing before they bite a bait under the ice.

I know wanting food could be mistaken for inquisitiveness, but I've observed bluegill in my tanks all face me and observe whatever I do regardless if it's feeding time, I'm doing a water change, or something else. My yellow perch don't even observe me even just before feeding. They just show up suddenly when the feed goes in.

Thoughts?

I observed that in my sunfish as well. I also observed while snorkling sunfish are one of the few fish that would face me or approach me in the wild as well (I akso have been followed by yellow perch as well but not watched by them face on like sunfish do).

Usil: I read an old magazine (either Field and Stream or Outdoor Life, I forgot which) where they did fish intelligence tests. they set up a safe tanik section and a wired one, when they dropped an item in they turned on the current to give the fish a shock, According to their study smallmouth bass learned to find safety the fastest followed by the trout, and the yellow perch never learned. Been years since I read it though.

Frogwhacker: I know I should feel sorry for your poor fish, but that story had me laughing.

My vote goes to bluegill - they will swim inside a trap just to see what's in there. No bait needed.

Least inquisitive fish: bowfin. Man, they are just stupid.

My vote goes to bluegill - they will swim inside a trap just to see what's in there. No bait needed.

Least inquisitive fish: bowfin. Man, they are just stupid.

IM was it you that had some in a circular tank and they would only swim in one direction regardless of the flow direction? The thought was they were in syc with the coriolis effect only?

I'd say swampfish (Chologaster) outranks bowfin on the stupid list. Snails laugh at them.

Least inquisitive fish: bowfin. Man, they are just stupid.

I vote for suckers, cause only a sucker like me would answer this... Merry Christmas everyone!

Usil: ...According to their study smallmouth bass learned to find safety the fastest...

Ditto. The smallmouth I raise are the toughest to recatch on hook and line once they have been caught once. In fact nearly impossible on the same bait.

My vote goes to bluegill - they will swim inside a trap just to see what's in there. No bait needed.

Least inquisitive fish: bowfin. Man, they are just stupid.

I never had a bowfin in a tank, but they seem very inquisitive when you are fishing. Lots of times while fishing I looked down to see a bowfin looking at me. They swim up to the boat and just sit there looking at you until you make a sudden movement or drop a nightcrawler in front of them.

Ditto. The smallmouth I raise are the toughest to recatch on hook and line once they have been caught once. In fact nearly impossible on the same bait.

That's what makes them so blasted hard to catch after you've educated a population of them. In fact, their intelligence is what made me decide to keep one as a pet. I've been extremely impressed with his associative abilities. He picks up on my actions that predate his lunch sometimes by an hour or more and gets excited. There are things that I used to do just before feeding him that now haven't meant food for nearly 6 months and he still gets excited when he sees me doing them. These kinds of associative abilities and memory are things that I wouldn't have given a fish credit for before I kept my SMB as a pet. There may be other fish with this kind of intelligence, but this is the only fish I've got that shows this level of capabilities.

Steve.

Ditto. The smallmouth I raise are the toughest to recatch on hook and line once they have been caught once. In fact nearly impossible on the same bait.

My grandmother used to have a camp on Winnepesaukee. A smallmouth bass lived under her dock. I hooked it once on a sunday and it spit out the hook and refused to take a worm again until Saturday of that week. I got it on the same bait but it took forever to bite it again.

Hello, I apologize for bringing up an older topic but I felt it was wrong to start a totally new thread on the subject.

Yes, I know the plastic cup cave looks goofy. Also rethinking the hairgrass against the front glass of the aquarium...

He seems to enjoy watching video games(his favorite is grand turismo 5).

I was playing on my DS the other day, and as I went up to the fish tank to plop in some bloodworms, I noticed that my Orangespotted Sunfish was not paying any attention at all to the food - rather, he was watching the colorful, flickering light that I was carrying. I set the game behind the aquarium and dropped some bloodworms in the front to see which he preferred. I think this picture provides confirmation! I left it there for about an hour, and when I came back, the humble sunfish was still sitting there and watching the screen, still ignoring his bloodworms. But that's not even the best part: when the screen would flash dramatically, Skittles would dart back and hide, then slowly reapproach the DS. At a different part, he jumped at the screen and tried to bite it with all of his might. I was sitting behind him and watching the whole time, stifling my laughter since that would break his concentration! I'm going to see if he reacts differently to other games.

I've kept two native fish, Elassoma gilberti (gulf coast pygmy sunfish) and Etheostoma spectabile (orange throat darters). The darters were by far more inquisitive than the pygmy sunfish are. They explored all the way up the plants to the surface of the tank, hopping and darting along from branch to branch in their search for tasty swordtail fry to eat. It's quite an accomplishment for a fish who can only crawl to drag itself up so high off of the ground just because it wanted to see what was up there. The pygmy sunfish are more territorial than anything else. A male won't leave its 1 foot of cubic volume of territory after he's claimed it. One male can go months and months and months in its own territory, never swimming outside it. In my 4 foot long tank that often means the fish never even swim the whole length of it. That's like an anti-inquisitive fish.

At Orangespotted:
That's one smart fish!