“Fish Sense” by Dr. Jonathan Balcombe (vegan), Part 1 of 2

Dr. Jonathan Balcombe (vegan) is a British-born ethologist, speaker and internationally recognized author whose work explores animal-people behavior, cognition, emotion, and the relationship between humans and animal-folk.

“We can see now and study them in ways that we couldn’t before, and we now realize that they’re, in fact, very complex, full members of the vertebrate group. They’re not lesser – they’re right up there with mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.” “The frillfin goby, it’s probably typically about that long. The studies show that they could learn a tide pool zone in one day, and you could take them away from that for 40 days, bring them back with no experience in the meantime, and they still remember the topography.” “Light is very important for the deep sea species that live in the abyss – the largest habitat in the world, but a very unexplored one by us. There are some fishes living in the light zone of the oceans that have the ability to see ultraviolet light. It’s a way they can communicate and recognize each other without giving away too much information to other fishes.”

“A fruit fly, which is the most well-studied insect in the world, they’re about a couple of millimeters long. They have a differentiated brain with a couple hundred thousand neurons – more than that, actually. There are [six or] seven Nobel Prizes won thanks to research on fruit flies. Science shows that a tiny brain can do a lot of things, and we shouldn’t be prejudiced against the intelligence of a creature just based on the size of their brains or their bodies.”