Goldfish actually have good memories

A team from Oxford University has trained nine fish to travel 70cm and back by giving them a food reward at the end.

The academics argue that the findings show that fish can accurately estimate distance and debunks the long-held belief that the fishes have little or no memory.

The university's department of biology scientists wanted to find out if fish have similar ways of navigating to land-based animals.

The results indicate that goldfish are dependent on visual cues to gauge distances. The results are consistent with them using a particular brain cell - also found in humans - to judge how far they have traveled.

Study leader Dr Adelaide Sibeaux said: "We all need to find our way home and to do so, we need to measure our distance from home.

"We have shown that fish, with incredible accuracy, can estimate distance, and they do this using the visual flow of objects passing by their eyes.

"Humans do something quite similar."

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