Dolphins not nearly as smart as Mr. Fish
New research suggests that dolphins are not nearly as smart as Mr. Fish:
Paul Manger from Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand, however, says it is not intelligence that created the dolphin super-brain – it’s the cold.
In order to survive underwater, these warm-blooded animals developed brains that have a lot of the insulating material – called glia – but not too many neurons, which is the grey stuff that counts for reasoned thinking.
”Goldfish can solve problems that dolphins can’t. When a goldfish jumps out of its bowl, it’s thinking past its immediate environment. Dolphins don’t have the cognitive leap,” Mr. Manger said in a telephone interview Thursday.
Peggy noted today that the new Mr. Fish has already started to learn that people walking past might equal food, and now perks up whenever we get near the tank. For a while I thought he was dumb as a post but there’s hope yet. I think he never associated people with food because before we got him he was inside PetSmart with people walking past all day and no food.
I bet we would have gotten more reaction with PetSmart uniforms.