Overview

• 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.