More and more species are joining the intelligent animal club, but fish with their tiny brains often fail to make it. For one thing, they have no reason to evolve the ability to recognize people. However, some fish intrigued a group of scientists working at a research station in the Mediterranean Sea.
Each season in the field, some local individuals seemed to follow a team of scientific divers, in particular the one responsible for transporting food used as a reward in experiments in the marine environment. The team suspected that these animals recognized this particular diver, since they followed only him and completely ignored the others. But was this genuine recognition or just a coincidence?
Armed with all their curiosity, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Germany conducted a series of experiments to find out whether wild fish are truly able to distinguish between people. Until now, there was little scientific evidence that these animals are able to do this. One captive-bred species, the archerfish, has certainly demonstrated this ability in the lab, recognizing computer images of human faces.
