Stingrays and their intelligence

redtailfool

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Feb 17, 2005
8,397
31
62
New Jersey
Check this article out. Reaffirms what other ray fanatics say about stingrays and their intelligence level. Very cool video too.


http://www.zoovienna.at/e/rochen.html

A research project devoted to learning and play behavior in freshwater stingrays (Potamotrygon castexi) is currently being conducted in the basement of the Aquarium House. For the uninitiated, this may seem somewhat bizarre, but for ethologists it’s a wonderful opportunity to gain new insights.

The Schönbrunn stingrays are actually quite smart – much more so than initially anticipated: They use toys and squirt water for the fun of it, a behavior they seem to display just for the visitors.

The story began back in September 2003, when several adult South American vermiculate river stingrays (Potamotrygon castexi) were delivered to Schönbrunn - as a gift from the Parc Merveilleux zoo in Luxembourg. One female was pregnant and gave birth to 6 young on October 16th. These were then transferred to a separate aquarium in the basement.

Duckweed was put into the 850 liter aquarium to dampen the light and reduce the nutrient levels in the water. These plants soon formed a dense layer on the water surface.

The stingrays began to inspect this duckweed layer from below, turning upside down with their bellies facing up. They sucked water and plants in and pumped a mixture of both into the underlying water.

One day, while swimming on the surface, they began to spurt water far over the edge of the aquarium.

A plastic mesh was placed on the aquarium as a lid, but this stopped them only briefly. The animals perfected their technique and were soon able to very precisely aim their water spouts through the mesh openings.

When visitors stop by, the fish seem to put on a special show, spouting so intensively that the water fountains almost hit the ceiling.

At the beginning, the researchers believed that the stingrays were simply trying to draw attention.
On the other hand, this behavior was not apparently correlated with feeding (dressage), leaving only a single conclusion: the rays were playing. Additional observations, however, cast doubt on this interpretation.

Dr. Michael Kuba, leader of the stingray project:
”My interpretation is that small food remnants remained lodged in the duckweed, triggering the "water spouting" behavior. Also, the rays appeared to have learned that humans mean “food” and therefore began to spout water as soon as someone approached the aquarium.”

The ongoing research will show whether the initial observations in the basement of Schönbrunn’s Aquarium House were simply human interpretations or whether the freshwater stingrays are truly as intelligent as they appear to be.

The project bears the title “Discrimination learning in freshwater stingrays”. The participating researchers: the Austrians Michael J. Kuba and Ruth A. Byrne – both of who recently worked at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (Altenberg, Austria), now at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem – and Gordon M. Burghardt, Professor at the University of Tennessee, USA. They continue to receive support from Dr. Ekkehard Wolff, director of the Aquarium House at Schönbrunn.

Their first challenge was to develop a method or apparatus that could scientifically document the learning success of these fish.

The simple solution: a plastic tube in which the food is hidden.

The freshwater stingrays can either blow into the tube to eject the food from the other side, or they can simply suck at one end.

In the meantime, the team has demonstrated that stingrays always suck the food out of the tube and never blow it out.

The next step was to improve the experimental setup. The researchers installed a net on the inside of the tube. This provided access to the food from one side only.

The new approach allowed the scientists to determine whether the animals can distinguish the white and black ends of the tube – they can only get their meal when they choose the “white” end.

Does insight guide stingray behavior? Do the fish understand what they are doing? Can they solve problems?

If “yes” is the answer, then this would shed new light on the purported games with the duckweed and the water spouts.

To accomplish all these tasks, the stingrays would have to show relatively high performance levels for a fish. They would actually have to “think”: “Aha, these tubes have two ends and only one...!”

[Video: learning experiment with plastic tubes]

Further information:
Michael J Kuba, PhD, MSc
Department of Neurobiology
Institute of Life Sciences and
Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation
Hebrew University
91904 Jerusalem, Israel
e-mail: michikuba@lobster.ls.huji.ac.il
 

freshwaterstingrays

Monster Ray Keeper
MFK Member
Nov 16, 2005
747
3
48
Fort Worth, Texas (682)
redtailfool said:
Check this article out. Reaffirms what other ray fanatics say about stingrays and their intelligence level. Very cool video too.


http://www.zoovienna.at/e/rochen.html

A research project devoted to learning and play behavior in freshwater stingrays (Potamotrygon castexi) is currently being conducted in the basement of the Aquarium House. For the uninitiated, this may seem somewhat bizarre, but for ethologists it’s a wonderful opportunity to gain new insights.

The Schönbrunn stingrays are actually quite smart – much more so than initially anticipated: They use toys and squirt water for the fun of it, a behavior they seem to display just for the visitors.

The story began back in September 2003, when several adult South American vermiculate river stingrays (Potamotrygon castexi) were delivered to Schönbrunn - as a gift from the Parc Merveilleux zoo in Luxembourg. One female was pregnant and gave birth to 6 young on October 16th. These were then transferred to a separate aquarium in the basement.

Duckweed was put into the 850 liter aquarium to dampen the light and reduce the nutrient levels in the water. These plants soon formed a dense layer on the water surface.

The stingrays began to inspect this duckweed layer from below, turning upside down with their bellies facing up. They sucked water and plants in and pumped a mixture of both into the underlying water.

One day, while swimming on the surface, they began to spurt water far over the edge of the aquarium.

A plastic mesh was placed on the aquarium as a lid, but this stopped them only briefly. The animals perfected their technique and were soon able to very precisely aim their water spouts through the mesh openings.

When visitors stop by, the fish seem to put on a special show, spouting so intensively that the water fountains almost hit the ceiling.

At the beginning, the researchers believed that the stingrays were simply trying to draw attention.
On the other hand, this behavior was not apparently correlated with feeding (dressage), leaving only a single conclusion: the rays were playing. Additional observations, however, cast doubt on this interpretation.

Dr. Michael Kuba, leader of the stingray project:
”My interpretation is that small food remnants remained lodged in the duckweed, triggering the "water spouting" behavior. Also, the rays appeared to have learned that humans mean “food” and therefore began to spout water as soon as someone approached the aquarium.”

The ongoing research will show whether the initial observations in the basement of Schönbrunn’s Aquarium House were simply human interpretations or whether the freshwater stingrays are truly as intelligent as they appear to be.

The project bears the title “Discrimination learning in freshwater stingrays”. The participating researchers: the Austrians Michael J. Kuba and Ruth A. Byrne – both of who recently worked at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (Altenberg, Austria), now at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem – and Gordon M. Burghardt, Professor at the University of Tennessee, USA. They continue to receive support from Dr. Ekkehard Wolff, director of the Aquarium House at Schönbrunn.

Their first challenge was to develop a method or apparatus that could scientifically document the learning success of these fish.

The simple solution: a plastic tube in which the food is hidden.

The freshwater stingrays can either blow into the tube to eject the food from the other side, or they can simply suck at one end.

In the meantime, the team has demonstrated that stingrays always suck the food out of the tube and never blow it out.

The next step was to improve the experimental setup. The researchers installed a net on the inside of the tube. This provided access to the food from one side only.

The new approach allowed the scientists to determine whether the animals can distinguish the white and black ends of the tube – they can only get their meal when they choose the “white” end.

Does insight guide stingray behavior? Do the fish understand what they are doing? Can they solve problems?

If “yes” is the answer, then this would shed new light on the purported games with the duckweed and the water spouts.

To accomplish all these tasks, the stingrays would have to show relatively high performance levels for a fish. They would actually have to “think”: “Aha, these tubes have two ends and only one...!”

[Video: learning experiment with plastic tubes]

Further information:
Michael J Kuba, PhD, MSc
Department of Neurobiology
Institute of Life Sciences and
Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation
Hebrew University
91904 Jerusalem, Israel
e-mail: michikuba@lobster.ls.huji.ac.il
wow great video :thumbsup:
 

redtailfool

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Feb 17, 2005
8,397
31
62
New Jersey
Youre welcome David.. theyre quite smart arent they.. on par with cichlids or even smarter. I got excited at the part where they would squirt water out of the tank when they see people approaching.

The video in the link was quite exciting too. Check out the pictures also. Im glad they are doing some studies regarding these freshwater wonders.
 

Zoodiver

As seen on TV
MFK Member
Aug 22, 2005
6,872
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South FL
Some places are doing operant conditioning with thier collections, similar to basic marine mammal training programs (targeting, stationing, A to B moves etc....)
 
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epicentyr

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 23, 2006
171
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GR Michigan
I just thought mine were being jerks. My male motoro will splash water onto the floor. I think that he has conditioned me to go clean up the tile floor and give a shrimp while i am watching him. I am glad that I have an automatic topoff and water change system because I loose probably a quart of water a day because of this. The water is starting to get under the formica on my stand.
 

abortedsoul

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 4, 2008
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MD, USA
I would love to see a video of the water-squirting behavior. Anyone know of one?
 

Miles

Stingray King
MFK Member
Jul 2, 2005
5,538
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Spokane, WA
Buen (Lode) uploaded a video of his pearls that learned to go upside down at the feeding hole and eject water quite a few feet..
 
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