Wild Fish Proven to Recognize Individual Human Divers

Mediterranean study reveals wild fish can distinguish divers based on visual cues, highlighting unexpected cognitive abilities.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior conducted experiments in the Mediterranean Sea, showing that wild fish can recognize individual human divers.
The study found that fish learned to associate specific divers with food rewards, relying on visual differences like the colors of dive gear to identify them.
Two species of seabream were particularly engaged, with individual fish returning daily for training sessions and demonstrating strong learning curves over time.
When divers wore identical gear, the fish could no longer distinguish between them, indicating their recognition was based on external visual cues like color patches.
The findings suggest that fish possess more advanced cognitive abilities than previously thought, challenging assumptions about human-animal relationships across evolutionary distances.