Fish Using Tools

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kidkams

Member
A few weeks ago I was out at a petco when I picked up a nice yellow coris wrasse. It was admittedly an impulse buy, but my tank can support it and it really needed the color. Anyway I feed intant algae pellets every now and again and i noticed that even though they are the smallest size they were still too big for the wrasse to swallow whole. what I had done in the past when this happened to my clown was crush the pellets up before feeding. But I've gotten busier, and didn't have to the time so I just tossed in the whole pellets and watched as the wrasse would catch a pellet, and carry it over to a rock or a shell and smash/scrape it against the rock until it broke into smaller peices.

This by scientific deifinition is the use of a tool. To some this may not sound that impressive, but I personally think its pretty cool. I have only heaqrd of one other instance of a fish using a tool. I know there ae plenty example of other animals using tools, but there are very few of fish.
 
This is a very impressive for a fish, I personally have not heard of any types of fish actually using tools and I know that only a handful of animals on earth are able to use tools, and if I remember correctly, the only or one of the only marine animals that are recorded to use a tool species wide are sea otters. I would love to see a video of your wrasse doing this, it would be very fascinating and probably something that has been rarely seen
 
Im sorry I could not find the video. I clicked on the link you provided and it was not able to find it so I tried searching for it manually on YouTube and couldn't find it there either
 
My earmuff wrasse does the same thing when I feed large pieces of krill to the tank. It is definitely something unique and cool that I've only seen wrasses do.
 
Triggerfish in some areas know how to eat sea urchins. They grab the urchin by one spine, swim up into the water column, and drop it. Urchins are top-heavy and settle upside down, getting stuck in the sand. The trigger can just go over and eat from its unprotected underside. It's a learned behavior, not an instinctive one, and it's only seen in a few areas. It's not exactly tool use, but it's clever.
An octopus in one aquarium got irritated by the light turning on over his tank every morning. He kept squirting water up at it and shorting it out. When they moved the light out of squirt reach, he threw rocks at it instead. Not sure if it's technically tool use, throwing rocks, but it's definitely very smart. Plus, an octopus is a blob of tentacles and eyeballs. A SMART blob of tentacles and eyeballs.
 
I feed frozen LRS Reef Frenzy and there occasionally pretty big pieces. Every wrasse in my tank except my McCosker's (H.chrysotania, H. chrysus, C. lineatus, C. rubrumarginatus) does that. I just thought it was normal behavior for them.
 
the only fish i have heard of doing anything similar to this is tuskfish and wrasses. apperently it is more common with wrasses than i had thought. I knew that some wrasses had shown this, but i don't think it is widespread
 
I saw tool usage once back in the 80's. I had a peice of dead staghorn coral and my baby clown trigger used to sleep in it. Well I took it into my head to redecorate the tank one day, and trigger was not happy. I had flipped " his" coral around to a nicer looking side. He seemed agitated, and was grabbing one end and pulling on it. When that didn't work he grabbed a decorative scallop shell and carried it in his mouth over to the coral and jammed it in at the base. Looked like he was trying to use the shell as a fulcrum to pry the coral up out of the sand so he could grab it back to when it was. Little guy was trying so hard I felt bad and put the coral back. But I was shocked that a fish could use a tool. I told my oceanography professor and he didn't believe me. I wrote to some people who were getting research together about the intelligence of triggerfish and they didn't believe me. I wish we had smart phones in those days, so I could have recorded it. But I know it happened. So, yeah, occasionally fish do amazing things.
 
kidkams said:
A few weeks ago I was out at a petco when I picked up a nice yellow coris wrasse. It was admittedly an impulse buy, but my tank can support it and it really needed the color. Anyway I feed intant algae pellets every now and again and i noticed that even though they are the smallest size they were still too big for the wrasse to swallow whole. what I had done in the past when this happened to my clown was crush the pellets up before feeding. But I've gotten busier, and didn't have to the time so I just tossed in the whole pellets and watched as the wrasse would catch a pellet, and carry it over to a rock or a shell and smash/scrape it against the rock until it broke into smaller peices.



This by scientific deifinition is the use of a tool. To some this may not sound that impressive, but I personally think its pretty cool. I have only heaqrd of one other instance of a fish using a tool. I know there ae plenty example of other animals using tools, but there are very few of fish.
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Ok, while I am no expert, I am going to college for marine biology and the video you have provided of your wrasse is very interesting and to me shows the awesome advancements in the animal kingdom, and It makes me wonder, is this an act that is maybe learned in the aquarium or is it exhibited in the wild as well. But with all that said I would not really classify that as the fish using a tool because if that would be using a tool you could also say that a roadrunner hitting a lizard off a rock to knock it out to eat it without struggle would be using a tool, now I could be wrong but I believe that the animal has to actually wield the tool itself for it to be considered to be using a tool, because I think that primates were first considered to use tools when they used a stick to get ants or bugs out of holes or use rocks that they actually hold to smash nuts or bones. But like I said I believe what your fish is doing is very interesting and I would totally find I worth it to do experiments to find out if this is a learned action for that fish in the hobby or in the wild too, and I thank you for sharing your experience and the video :)
 
Yea it's definitely a wrasse thing. My Snooty Maori Wrasse & Melanurus wrasse do the same to large pieces of food (krill/silverside). I've even seen my Snooty do it to live crayfish to bust them up real good - brutal but effective.
 
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