Goldfish have poor memories

A goldfish brain might be small, but it demonstrates effective memory.

Goldfish have a reputation for being unusually forgetful, but that is utterly wrong. The small fish can easily remember even complex problems after more than five months, according to experiments, in which the fish were trained to find their way through a maze.

At first, the fish spent several minutes passing through the maze, but they learned to make it in about 30 seconds. After the practice, they were moved to an ordinary aquarium and did not see the maze for almost six months. When they were placed in the maze again, they spent less than 30 seconds completing it. The result shows that the fish clearly remembered how to find their way.