I don't think any video can top this one by Professor Ronen Segev – lead author on this weeks research. 

This is hilarious... 

What would you think if you saw a goldfish driving a mini fish tank down a street – odd to say the least, something of one of those prank shows – but in fact you would be observing a study to see whether goldfish can perform navigational tasks outside their normal environment.  

These are clever goldfish!  

Yes, that's right – you just watched a goldfish driving a fishtank on wheels. 

Published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research 

Ronen and his colleagues built a fish tank that could drive in the direction that a fish inside it moved.  

We know that animals need navigation skills to find food, seek mates, migrate but are these navigation skills are specific to the environment an animal evolved to survive in? 

The research was designed to learn more whether a species can perform navigation tasks outside its own environment. 

Domain transfer methodology is the ability to use navigation skills in unfamiliar settings and the big science question is do animals (or at least goldfish) have it? 

To find out, first the scientists had to build a driving fish tank and then give the fish driving lessons. The scientist taught the fish that their own swimming movements correlated to the movement of the vehicle and put a pink target board in the room that the tank was in. If the fish made it to the board, they were given a snack. 

After a little bit of training, they found the 6 fish were highly capable of navigating their tank around a room towards a target, no matter where in the room they started.  

So not only can you train a fish to drive a tank car but it seems that fish can totally navigate both in and out of water! 

Dr Michelle Dickinson “Nanogirl” joined Francesca Rudkin. 

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