How does a fish know his own kind?

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V

vfc

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 25, 2007
695
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Philadelphia
Recently a friend posed a question that I did not have a good answer for.

How does a fish know who to school with if he has never seen his own image?

Are they born with a .jpg image of their own species in their brain or is there some type of chemical marker?
 
Relative size & behavior?

I have a shoal of tiger barbs in my 65g and had been raising two convict fry in my 55. Recently one of my convicts hit the 1-1.5" mark (about equal to my mid-size barbs in the shoal) and I was able to catch him & move him to the 65. He appears to be shoaling up with the tiger barbs who (right now) are of a similar size & temperament. Only other fish in the tank is a 5" jack dempsey.

I dunno.
 
vfc;4771982; said:
Recently a friend posed a question that I did not have a good answer for.

How does a fish know who to school with if he has never seen his own image?

Are they born with a .jpg image of their own species in their brain or is there some type of chemical marker?
Click to expand...

That is a very good question, how does anything that hasn't looked at it's own reflection know for that matter :confused:
 
You could also consider this...You know how people that are lacking one of the 5 senses usually have a very heightened ability in the remaining 4? (Loss of vision, better hearing/smell etc etc) Well, consider intelligence & instinct to be on the same level. Humans are a very intelligent species, we have some degree of instinct (gut feelings etc) but mostly rely on our abilities of thought to get through life.

Perhaps animals (who are markedly less intelligent than humans, even the smartest of them) have extremely heightened instincts, which allow them to just 'know' what they are & where they belong in their ecosystem.
 
anything that is too difficult to understand
was designed that way by god
 
Moloch;4772009; said:
You could also consider this...You know how people that are lacking one of the 5 senses usually have a very heightened ability in the remaining 4? (Loss of vision, better hearing/smell etc etc) Well, consider intelligence & instinct to be on the same level. Humans are a very intelligent species, we have some degree of instinct (gut feelings etc) but mostly rely on our abilities of thought to get through life.

Perhaps animals (who are markedly less intelligent than humans, even the smartest of them) have extremely heightened instincts, which allow them to just 'know' what they are & where they belong in their ecosystem.
Click to expand...

Very well put :cheers:
 
^^ above answer is good. But I have put a mirror in all my tanks so my fish know what they are. Im training them to come out of the tank and feed themselves next.:naughty:
 
BODYDUB;4773114; said:
It's just instinct man............
Click to expand...
correct.


Instinct tells them to shoal with a certain colour /temperment of fish that usualy also dictates that it be the same species. There also are hormones relased by certain fish that signal other fish of their species to shoal with them.


Cardinal tetras will often shoal with neons becuase they are so closely related. And have very similar hormones and behaviour.
 
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