Name: Goldfish memory.
Length: Three seconds.
Name: Goldfish memory.
Length: OK, before you start padding out the word count with hilarious memory-based repetition, I need to point something out. Goldfishes have surprisingly good memories.
Famously, they do not. Yes, but a myth is still a myth. People say “blind as a bat”, despite the fact that many bats can see just as well as humans. Others think camels store water in their humps, when in fact they are full of fat.
Huh. And so it is with goldfish. For years, people have used: “You’ve got a memory like a goldfish,” as an insult, based on the misconception that they have a very short memory span. Actually, it’s a compliment.
Is it? Yes! Talking to BBC Radio 4’s Naturebang, Prof Culum Brown of Macquarie University in Sydney pointed out that fish have excellent memories for locations and other fish.
Oh really? And what makes Prof Brown so special? He’s a world-leading fish-cognition expert.
I didn’t know that was a thing. It is. He did a test where a fish was made to escape a hole in a net over and over again. Each time the experiment was repeated, the fish found the exit more quickly. He then returned the fish to the same net 11 months later – and it still remembered how to escape.
This is new information. It isn’t. Two years ago, researchers from the University of Oxford trained goldfish to swim exactly 70cm to receive a treat. They were quickly able to memorise how far 70cm was.
I don’t remember that. Really? We reported on it, at length.
Maybe I wasn’t around that day. Well, we have reported several similar things over a span of about 20 years.
What are you trying to say? Me? Nothing. Except, you know, I’m sure that a goldfish would have remembered something that this newspaper has repeatedly underlined. Maybe fish are more intelligent than you are.
Why do I suddenly fear a goldfish uprising? Because, as I have already implied, you aren’t particularly bright.
So where did the three-second myth come from? My best guess? As a way to rationalise the intolerable practice of humans keeping fish in uncomfortably small tanks at home to use as an ornament.
This got dark. Can we end on a joke? Sorry, I can’t remember any.
Do say: “Goldfish memories last longer than three seconds.”
Don’t say: “Can you remind me again in a fortnight?”
