Kreuter Nils, Christofzik Nele, Niederbremer Carolin, Bollé Janik, Schluessel Vera
Institute of Zoology, University of Bonn, Poppelsdorfer Schloss, Meckenheimerallee 169, 53115 Bonn, Germany.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Sep 8;11(9):2634. doi: 10.3390/ani11092634.
Over the last decade, studies examining the cognitive abilities of fish have increased, using a broad range of approaches. One of the foci has been to test the ability of fish to discriminate quantities of items and to determine whether fish can solve tasks solely on the basis of numerical information. This study is the first to investigate this ability in two elasmobranch species. All animals were trained in two-alternative forced-choice visual experiments and then examined in transfer tests, to determine if previously gained knowledge could be applied to new tasks. Results show that the grey bamboo shark () and the ocellate river stingray () can discriminate quantities based on numerical information alone, while continuous variables were controlled for. Furthermore, the data indicates that similar magnitudes and limits for quantity discrimination exist as in other animals. However, the high degree of intraspecific variation that was observed as well as the low rate of animals proving to be successful suggest that the ability to discriminate quantities may not be as important to these species as to some other vertebrate and invertebrate species tested so far.
在过去十年中，使用广泛方法对鱼类认知能力进行研究的数量有所增加。其中一个重点是测试鱼类区分物品数量的能力，并确定鱼类是否能够仅基于数字信息解决任务。本研究首次在两种软骨鱼类中调查这种能力。所有动物都在二选一强制选择视觉实验中接受训练，然后在转移测试中进行检查，以确定先前获得的知识是否可以应用于新任务。结果表明，灰竹鲨（）和眼斑河魟（）能够仅基于数字信息区分数量，同时控制了连续变量。此外，数据表明，与其他动物一样，存在相似的数量区分幅度和限制。然而，观察到的高度种内变异以及成功的动物比例较低表明，数量区分能力对这些物种的重要性可能不如迄今为止测试的其他一些脊椎动物和无脊椎动物物种。
