PremiumGoldfish are capable of transferring to a wholly different terrestrial environment and navigate successfully, Israeli researchers have found, after training fish to drive
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A team of Israeli researchers at Ben-Gurion University developed an FOV - a fish-operated vehicle.
That's right! A Fish-Operated Vehicle.
The driver's seat has been occupied by none other than- Goldfishes.
Goldfish are capable of transferring to a wholly different terrestrial environment and navigate successfully, Israeli researchers have found, after training fish to drive.
The FOV - a fish-operated vehicle is a robotic car fitted with lidar, a remote sensing technology that uses pulsed laser light to collect data on the vehicle's ground location and the fish's whereabouts inside a mounted water tank.
A computer, camera, electric motors and omni-wheels give the fish control of the vehicle.
"We trained goldfish to drive a wheeled platform that reacts to the fish’s movement," wrote scientist Ronen Segev on Twitter.
"Surprisingly, it doesn't take the fish a long time to learn how to drive the vehicle. They're confused at first. They don't know what's going on but they're very quick to realise that there is a correlation between their movement and the movement of the machine that they're in," said researcher Shachar Givon.
Six goldfish, each receiving around 10 driving lessons, took part in the study. Each time one of them reached a target set by the researchers, it was rewarded with food.
"There were very good fish that were doing excellent and there were mediocre fish that showed control of the vehicle but were less proficient in driving it," said biology professor and neuroscientist Ronen Segev.
The study stated that the fish were tasked to “drive" the FOV towards a visual target in the terrestrial environment, which was observable through the walls of the tank, and indeed were able to operate the vehicle, explore the new environment, and reach the target regardless of the starting point, all while avoiding dead-ends and correcting location inaccuracies.
The study enhances scientific knowledge of animals' essential navigation skills, case in point being the cognitive capability of fishes to traverse outside oits natural habitat.
"We humans think of ourselves as very special and many think of fish as primitive but this is not correct," said Segev. "There are other very important and very smart creatures."
(With inputs from Reuters)
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