Do Not Mess With Fish 164,

and you thought fish were fun!

the zebra fish, (Danio rerio), in this freshwater aquarium did when scientists put this female look alike into an aquarium with males in it, they reported that the fooled zebra fish were attracted to the movements of their new robotic pal but were slightly put off by the sound of its mechanically operated tail, also commenting they did not say why they gave the fish a smiling expression, but its friendly demeanor seemed to do the trick, lead research scientist Dr Maurizio Porfiri said: 'these findings provide practical evidence that a species' preference for conspecifics may be used to inspire the design of robots which can actively engage their source of inspiration', so there you have it,


as an aside for many years since the 1970's zebra fish have been used in disease research, like humans, they have a backbone, this means that they are more closely related to humans than commonly used invertebrate models such as insects and worms (Drosophilia - fruit flies and Caenorhabditis elegans - nematodes) which do not have backbones,

because zebra fish are more closely related to humans, they are more likely to be similar to them in many biological traits than a more distantly related organism, these biological traits would include genes, developmental processes, anatomy, physiology, and behaviours, this is an advantage that invertebrate lab animals do not share with humans, the invertebrates are more appropriately used in comparisons at the cellular or biochemical level of organisation where they share many features with humans, we encountered hundreds of them a few years ago when Neil and myself were looking for new fish specie in India, way to go zebras!