Last year we learned that farm animals such as cows, pigs, goats and chickens have much richer emotions and more complex mental lives than we ever thought. That research claimed that animals nurture friendships, become excited by new challenges and feel emotions such as fear, anxiety and happiness. Now we have new research out of Britain which claims that even fish have different personalities which change as they are exposed to different life experiences. Biologists from the University of Liverpool claim to have identified different “personalities” in fish by obverving the boldness or shyness of the fish in response to various stimuli. The fish were studied as they were exposed to strange new objects or watched other fish go through experiments which even included “fixing” fights between fish to guage their reactions to winning or losing a fight over food. The researchers found that the future behaviour of each fish changed depending on what they had seen or experienced. "The general opinion is that a fish is a fish but they show striking individual personality differences," said one of the researchers. "However, we have shown that this is flexible and that behaviour is adjusted to circumstances." (The Telegraph)
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