Fish Behavior - Do fish care?

[Backfromthedead]

We all enjoy watching our fish, and in my case the recent peculiar behaviour of my red shoulder sev towards my injured RTGG has had me not only fascinated, but also suggests that something "other" is going on with their thought process.

Simple hobbyists such as ourselves can chew the fat all day long on the subject, but we'll be none the wiser at the end of it, even scientists haven't got a true grasp of it.

Possible that the sev is checking for parasites or other microorganisms that are attracted to the GG's wound?

Agree with you otherwise though. I believe fish and most of the rest of the animal kingdom perceive the world in much different ways than humans do.
Empathizing with them is impossible imo, so its equally impossible to assign any of our "emotions" to a specific behavior. Best we have is theory, educated guesses.

Instinct has been brought up several times here. While i dont technically equate emotion with instinct, i would say that emotions could be described as "instinctive behavior", the "gut feeling", the "knee-jerk".

As an educated guess, i would say fish have an emotional spectrum that roughly translates to the list of emoticons that are available when you hold the "like" button under a post lol. But i suspect they have access to a much different, perhaps even greater, spectrum of instinctual behaviors.

 

[Cal Amari]

It appears to me to be largely a matter of semantics. Fish obviously have feelings, we can seet them act stressed, scared, aggressive, defensive, tc. But interpreting those feelings as emotions is a logical jump I'm not sure I can make.

We humans like to classify and compartmentalize and organize everything around us into finer and finer categories, but as for the rest of the animal kingdom, who can say. I believe it's likely for most of them the analysis part never kicks in. Think of an infant or toddler, they experience the same spectrum of good and bad impulses we do, but don't have the words to refine them, or reflect on them and dwell on them. They seem to largely live in the moment, though patterns are recognized by them over time as good or bad, learning that if I cry, i get a clean diaper, etc.

People can be considered emotionally stunted, or have one of many diagnoses that basically means they don't feel emotions the same way the majority does, they may think more simply in terms of beneficial or detrimental, or good or bad, but they still feel.

Seeing fish react to a lost member of their environment they've been around for months or years is a change to their environment and they are very perceptive to change in their environment. Maybe they even recognize it as a loss, but anthropomorphizing it beyond that seems a stretch to me.

 

[LBDave]

"Projecting human emotions on animals may be the first best guess on what they are doing"
- Carl Safina

 

[Chet E.]

As a boy I grew up with a pair of snakeheads. They ate anything. What they couldn't swallow they bit in half. We often brought home a few extra morsels from fishing trips just for them. It was amazing to watch their behavior. This pair would do everything together. Like twins. They would even hunt cooperatively. Amongst the many which dad owned this pair was unique in this behavior.
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One day, as we played at a beech on a lake, a large and ancient crayfish passed by. It came home to the snakeheads. It was interesting that they did not eat this creature. Crawdads were not foreign to them. They'd eaten many. Nor was it's size of any great challenge. They would bite through hand sized pan fish. Why not this old crayfish?
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I'm want to say respect or pity perhaps. The crayfish lived out it's remaining months eating leftovers unmolested. It was an experience hard to explain. Did the snakeheads care? At least, they accepted its presence in their home.

 

[SilverArowanaBoi]

I believe that fish have feelings, but some have less capacity to feel than others. I think the bigger the brain, the more likely the ability to empathize and have feelings. Tetras have smaller brains than an Oscar, so we see more personality in an Oscar than a Tetra. But this is just purely my opinion.

 

[Rougarou]

This is a topic that is fascinating. After years of observation, it is my opinion that fish are way more intelligent , inquisitive, and rational than most people give them credit for. We as humans, being the pinnacle of intelligence on earth, tend to view other creatures as simply being mechanical and instinctive in there thought process. When you're able to view a fishes world through their lens, you begin to realize that their existence relies on the ability of rational thinking.