BBC Science Focus

THEY MAKE TOOLS

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Tool use is a sign of higher intelligen­ce that various fish have. Archerfish use droplets of water as bullets to shoot insects off vegetation above the water’s surface; they can even adjust the aim to compensate for the way light bends as it passes between air and water, and still hit their target.

A few years ago, researcher­s in Norway saw captive Atlantic cod inventing a new tool to feed themselves. Three cod, in two separate tanks, accidental­ly got their identifica­tion tags tangled in a string that released food from an automatic feeder. Beforehand, the cod had learned to pull the string with their mouths to get food. But these three cod worked out that it was much faster to deliberate­ly hook their tags on the string then spin around and gobble the food.

 ??  ?? Dr Helen Scales is a marine biologist and science writer. Her latest book is Eye Of The Shoal
(£16.99, Bloomsbury).
Dr Helen Scales is a marine biologist and science writer. Her latest book is Eye Of The Shoal (£16.99, Bloomsbury).

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