Diver Snaps First Photo of Fish Using Tools

Now, I believe it may be significant that a photo was gotten in the wild. But I've seen my melanarus wrasse do this about 50 times to snails; has nobody taken this photo or seen this behavior before, or did the researchers who claim this is novel not do their research well enough?

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/diver-snaps-first-photo-of-fish-.html?ref=hp

 

Very interesting, it appears to have not been caught by researchers on film according to the article.

 

This is interesting - but I want to know how is this a tool? :-/
If he were taking the clam and using it to scape algae to eat - that would be using a tool to me. I agree with the primatologist near the end of the article on that one. The different rules for underwater argument is interesting though too. Thanks for sharing.

matt

 

Tool use since the fish is using the rock as an anvil? That is how I would guess it is tool use.

 

Yeah I hear ya - but he isn't holding the rock. That is part of the 'stricter' definition of a tool that makes sense to me.

 

I agree, the fish is not using a tool.. Even if you or I were using an anvil, we would be using a hammer onto the anvil or even a rock.. Seaguls pickup shells all the time & drop them to break them open.

This article holds no merit.. Whales & seals use boats & other things to scratch themselves. Sperm whales use the ocean floor to smash large squid to kill them before eating, thus that is why their heads are shaped the way they are. Am I the only one confused on this?

Now if the fish was using a shell to dig, now it would be using a tool..

 

Agreed.

 

Beyond that, the anvil isn't a natural construct. It's something a person created.

 

I was referring to the anvil as us & that's why I said rock for the fish.

Sent from my HTC EVO 3D using Tapatalk

 

Oh no, I meant even if something created then used an anvil to directly break open a shell (just swinging a coconut at it, for example), I would consider it tool usage, as the anvil is created by the user. I wouldn't consider this tool usage, as it's taking the shell and hitting it into a rock that was just naturally there, and not created for that express purpose by the fish. See what I mean?