Goldfish

The goldfish is a small freshwater fish kept as a pet for over a thousand years. It is widely believed to have a memory of only three seconds. This is not true. Experiments have shown that goldfish can learn to respond to sounds, lights and colours and remember what they learned for months.^[1] The three-second figure appears to have been invented by someone who forgot where they had read it.

Memory

Goldfish have been trained to push levers, swim through mazes and come to a particular part of the tank at feeding time. A goldfish in a round bowl does not think every lap is new; it is simply aware that there is nothing else to do.^[2]

The belief that goldfish forget everything is now thought to be more firmly remembered by people than anything is by goldfish.

Stomach

Goldfish have no stomach. Food passes straight into a long gut, which is why they are always looking for more. Goldfish are also not gold; they are orange, and have been allowed to keep the name because nobody wanted to tell them.

• Memory: months.
• Stomach: none.
• Gold: none.
• Laps of the bowl remembered: all of them.

See also

• Orange – its actual colour
• Circle – the shape of its bowl
• Water – its home

References

1. Bowl, B. (2003). I Remember You. Tank Press.
2. Lap, L. (1994). “Not New Each Time”. Fishkeeping Science 3: 0 (not 3 s).
3. Gilt, G. (2008). Orange, Actually. Pond Books.