Why do I say that fish are smarter than us? Well think about it, we as 2 legged beings can go forward, backward and from side to side. Fish can do that too, but they can also go up and down, and they can do that just by thinking about it and barely moving a fin. If we get up in the middle of the night because we hear a noise or whatever the reason, we would run into walls, doors, windows and the lucky few of us may run into a beautiful cat burgler. But a fish would not run (or swim) into anything. Why? Because they have a lateral line that lets them know what is around them even in pitch darkness. Ever wonder why you could never catch a fish by chasing it with a net? If someone ran after you with a net, I bet they would catch you.
Everybody here who has a lateral line raise your hand, Higher. Thats what I thought.
Have you ever gone fishing, and you sit there all day putting worms on a hook and you don't get one bite? Then you get disquested and throw the rest of your worms in the water thinking that all the fish must have gone to a Myley Cyrus concert only to see 47 fish come up to devour all the worms you just dumped in. It happens all the time. They know there is a hook in there. But how?
Fish can do something else that "most" of us can't do. They can change sex. Then, if they get bored, they can change back. If we do that, it is very painful, (I would imagine) only works one time, is very expensive and leaves scars, (I think anyway, not that I know anything about that or am judging anyone)
I have some fireclown fish, well I had one for a long time and I decided to get another one.
That first one was either male or female, I have no idea, But then again I rode the Long Island Railroad for 40 years and many times I wasn't sure if I was next to a man, woman or duck billed platypus because I don't really pay attention, but I digress. This fireclown sat there in a broken bottle for years and just looked out the glass at me. He (or she)kept guard over a nest and he would keep it neat, blow away detritus along with arrow crab poop. And there wasn't even another fireclown for, Oh I don't know 15 miles (I am guessing) Then one day I added another fireclown and they both fought. I don't know if they both thought of themselves as boys, girls or politicians, but then after a few years they started becoming friends, then they were more then friends if you know what I mean. So one of them became a female. (I could tell by her eyelashes and she started to smell better) Now I don't know what posessed that one to change into a female but I do remember walking in front of the tank in my underwear, I don't know if that would have caused the transformation, my wife just tells me to get away from the front of the TV.
So fish are not as stupid as we think. If you had no thumbs to hold a pencil, how well do you think you would do on standardized tests?
Remember we spend thousands of dollars on fish, then spend more thousands on rocks, then spend hundreds on medications, test kits, books etc. Then we spend $12.00 for tiny cubes of clam or mysis to feed them. What did a fish ever do for you? Nothing right! Except die, jump out or get ich, Pop Eye or swim bladder disease.
Fish can do many things that we can't do. If we put some food in the tank, they will find it right away, I can't even find anything my wife puts in the refrigerator.
If a fish loses an eye, he barely notices and goes about his life as if he just had Lazac surgery. They get along fine just by relying on their lateral line. Fish don't even have to sleep, if we go like 3 days with out sleep we start hallucinating about Paris Hilton's dog or worse, but if you leave the lights on, a fish will just stay awake and, Oh I don't know, think about changing sex.
Another wierd thing about fish is that tropical fish for the most part are beautifully colored, why is that? Is it to attract a mate? to scare predators? to look good in magazines? No. Why? because where fish live the only color you can see is blue. If you decend down in the ocean about 40' everything becomes blue because blue is the only color of the spectrum that gets through that much water. (It is either 30' 40' or something like that, I am a diver but I never take a rueller with me and I forgot the depth that colors disappear, work with me here)
So all fish appear blue in the sea. A copperband butterfly would be blue with darker blue bands, and red appears black. (I got a moray eel story with blood and all so if you didn't hear it, remind me) So their color is a mystery. The fish probably know why they have those colors but no one else does. Yes, I realize some people think they know, but trust me, They don't, and some people think they know everything.
Also while we are seriously thinking about this, why do fish from temperate (or cold water) have drab colors?
Ever see a bright red or blue flounder with yellow stripes? I didn't think so, but why not? I don't know, but I bet you never thought about it. I did. Think about it, people from tropical countries are not bright purple, yellow and blue, but tropical fish are. People from New York, Alaska and Greenland are the same colors as people from every where else. Why are fish so special?
Why are there no copperband butterflies in Florida? You would think with all the bilge water from ships some of them would get here as invasive species. But no, what do we get for invasive species? Snakeheads that eat everything imaginable, carp, that invaded every river, stream, brook, lake, sink, bathtub and coffee pot everywhere in the world. Those things could live on a damp sponge. Zebra mussles that clog pipes and taste like snot, Japanese shore crabs that snuck into every square inch of coastline on the eastern US, and lionfish that are eating all the small native fish. So why can't we get invasive copperband butterflies, square anthias, sailfin tangs, bangai cardinals, mandarins, ruby red dragonettes or if they will bring back Star Trek?
This is just one more thing I don't know. There is a whole plethora of things I don't know. An unimaginal vast expanse of knowledge I don't possess. I mean we could go on about what is at the end of the universe and we would all have different opinions, sort of like ich threads. I think at the end of the universe is a brick wall with tar paper on top of it, and beyond that are strawberry fields forever. Prove me wrong.
I guess we should save some room for your thoughts and then we could start on why invertabrates are smarter than we are. Well, smarter than "some" of us anyway.
