Goldfish Show a Keen Ability to Estimate Distances
Published:31 Oct.2022 Source:ScienceDaily
To investigate whether fish have similar spatial navigation systems to terrestrial species, researchers from the University of Oxford tested whether goldfish (Carassius auratus) could perform a task central to spatial mapping-distance estimation.
According to the researchers, the results indicate that goldfish estimate distances by visually streaming the apparent motion patterns of objects in the environment (called 'optic flow'). Many terrestrial species are known to use optic flow to estimate distance, but goldfish appear to process the information differently.Terrestrial animals, including humans, ants, wolf-spiders, and honey bees, estimate distances by measuring how the angle between their eye and surrounding objects changes as they travel. Goldfish, on the other hand, appear to use the number of contrast changes experienced en-route.
Goldfish can accurately estimate distance and show that they use optic flow to do so. These results provide a compelling basis to use goldfish as a model system to investigate the evolution of the mechanisms that underpin spatial cognition in vertebrates.