Great book. I was afraid it might be too anecdotal, but the author provided plenty of studies to back u the interesting claims regarding sensation and intelligence in fish. Yes, fish, every reviewer seems to be kind enough to change the plural to fishes to make the author's point and I get it, but found it a bit annoying. To the sensitive and kind hearted, be prepared, some of the research is not for the faint of heart and if you ever want to eat a tuna sub again, might stop before the ;ast chapter ( )

Жара. Рыба прыгает в реке. Суетится около маски дайвера. Лето — это то прекрасное время, когда рыбы, составляющие 60% всех известных позвоночных животных Земли, становятся к нам ближе. А чтобы контакт был более информативным, можно обратиться к книжной новинке. Захватывающие научные открытия о том, как думают, чувствуют и проживают свою жизнь рыбы, поступают почти каждую неделю. Специалист по поведению животных Джонатан Бэлкомб структурировал последние новости, да так, что книга попала в категорию 18 . Отдельным бонусом можно считать комментарии отечественного научного редактора. Наш хорошо подкованный ученый устраивает такие «баттлы в комментах», что не оторваться.

Do fish think? Or have feelings? Of course they do. If you need a book to tell you that fish are sentient, aware and social beings, then you’ve come to the right place. But even if you already know that fish are capable creatures, this book humorously shares a lot of really great myth-busting science about the breathtaking diversity and beauty in the undersea world, such as courtship rituals, tool use, parental care, socialization and more.
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Well written book about fish behavior as well as informed speculation about their inner mental lives. Lightened up with some humor and also warmly told anecdotes about fish-human interactions. First and last chapters are pretty strong attempts to get people to quit killing (and eating) fish but the rest of the book only shows love and sympathy for fish, not calls to action. ( )

Full of factoids, logically organized, but the passionate scientists and the scientific process are mostly missing.

> Swordfishes can heat up their eyes twenty to thirty degrees Fahrenheit above the water temperature.

> The sticklebacks behaved as if they had previewed the study plan. When just one fish was presented with two models, it followed the healthier-looking model to its refuge about 60 percent of the time. Performance steadily improved with group size to over 80 percent in groups of ten sticklebacks. This is an example of consensus decision making.

> A subordinate male risks having to fight with a larger male if he is within about 5 percent of the bigger one’s size. A loss could bump him down a few notches in the mating queue. What is a little fish to do? In an admirable show of restraint, male gobies of various species deliberately limit their food intake to retain their place in the queue.

> If the breeding female dies, the chief male changes sex to female and the next largest fish in the subordinate group bumps up to chief male. So there is always hope for a suppressed male in a clownfish family. (All of this reveals a slight inaccuracy in the course of events in Finding Nemo. The fact is, upon Nemo’s losing his mother, his dad, Marlin, should have become his new mother.)

> sperm drinking certainly works for catfishes, for it is believed to occur in as many as twenty species.

> There are a few other all-female species among reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and birds. These species are referred to as parthenogenetic because no sperm is required to fertilize their eggs. But the situation is even more peculiar in Amazon mollies, because they can produce fertile eggs only if they mate with a male Molly of another species. Although the mating act is necessary to trigger pregnancy, it’s a case of “sperm donor lite” for males, whose sperm do not actually fertilize the female’s egg.

> Each leap culminates with the two fishes turning upside down and depositing sperm and about a dozen eggs. Talk about good timing! In this manner, several dozen translucent (and well-camouflaged) eggs end up adhering in a cluster on the target leaf. I’ve read that leaps can be four inches high, but watching a film of the behavior indicates that characins can jump much higher. They can also buy more time to deposit their goods by clinging to the leaf for several seconds. The incubation period is very short, which is just as well because Dad must work in overdrive to keep the eggs moist. He does this by firing water onto the egg masses with a skillful tail-flick. It must be an exhausting job, for splashing is performed at one-minute intervals during the two to three days until the eggs hatch and the newborns drop into the water.

> Pricklebacks, gunnels, and wolf eels coil their elongate bodies around their egg cluster as the tide recedes, trapping a small pool of water in which the eggs sit. It says something about the virtue of parental dedication that a fish will lie for many hours, exposed to air, to protect his or her future offspring. Further strategies for protecting eggs above the waterline include covering them with seaweed, burying them in the sand, and hiding them among rocks. There must be advantages: higher incubation temperatures, higher oxygen concentrations, and lower predation

> Some bettas protect their young in bubble nests, which might be an evolutionary precursor to mouthbrooding. Bubble nests work well in stagnant water where bubble-nesting bettas live. They keep the eggs and developing fry together, safe, moist, and close to the oxygen-rich atmosphere. But in moving water such as a stream, a bubble nest is very difficult to maintain. Parents manipulate eggs with their mouths during the construction of bubble nests, so it is just a short evolutionary hop to holding the eggs in the mouth. ( )