Their latest research, published in Scientific Reports<\/i>, requires the fish to perform simple sums before they are rewarded. Blue shapes mean they must add one to the total; yellow ones mean they must subtract one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen they are shown the blue-two, they pick the blue-three, and for the yellow-two, they pick the yellow-one,\u201d says Vera Schluessel, who led the work. \u201cEither they are learning the rule \u2018pick the bigger or smaller\u2019 or they are actually adding or subtracting.<\/p>\n
But if you give them the blue-three and then include blue-four and blue-five in their choice options, they pick the blue-four significantly more often than the five, so I do think they are actually adding and subtracting one rather than picking larger or smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schluessel\u2019s team are now pushing the fish to solve harder sums. \u201cWe also want to test the concept of zero,\u201d she says. \u201cDo they know that one is more than nothing?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Like honeybees, which are capable of similar calculations, fish lack a neocortex, the part of the brain responsible for complex cognition in mammals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope this allows us to see fish a bit differently,\u201d says Schluessel. \u201cThey are capable of amazing things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Main image:\u00a0Kenyi cichlid (<\/em>Maylandia lombardoi) aquarium fish \u00a9 Getty<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/body><\/html>\n
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By Stuart Blackman Published: Wednesday, 11 May 2022 at 12:00 am New research on fish proves you don\u2019t need fingers to learn to count or even to perform simple addition and subtraction. Biologists at Germany\u2019s University of Bonn have been training cichlids and stingrays to count up to five by presenting them with a selection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":16626,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/05\/its-official-fish-can-count.jpg",509,339,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/05\/its-official-fish-can-count-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/05\/its-official-fish-can-count-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/05\/its-official-fish-can-count.jpg",509,339,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/05\/its-official-fish-can-count.jpg",509,339,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/05\/its-official-fish-can-count.jpg",509,339,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/05\/its-official-fish-can-count.jpg",509,339,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Wednesday, 11 May 2022 at 12:00 am New research on fish proves you don\u2019t need fingers to learn to count or even to perform simple addition and subtraction. Biologists at Germany\u2019s University of Bonn have been training cichlids and stingrays to count up to five by presenting them with a selection…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/16625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}