Goldfish have longer memories than thought.
Goldfish have longer memories than many think
The belief that the fish forget things after just a few seconds has been branded "laughable" by Professor Culum Brown as he showed that a group of the creatures could remember escape routes from netting.
The scientist - who has been described as a "well-known champion of fish intelligence" - explained that fish are like other living species as they adapted through memory and stressed that they would "not last long in the real world" if they weren't able to do so.
Professor Brown, a behaviour ecologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, said: "No matter where you go in the world, people have a very, very low expectation about a goldfish's memory.
"And I don't think it's goldfish in particular - I think goldfish are symbolic of fishes in general.
"There's this general tale that fishes have this awful capacity for memory.
"And presumably, if they can't remember anything, they can't learn anything."