Diver Photographs Fish Using Tools To Eat (VIDEO)

A professional diver has captured what are believed to be the first pictures of a wild fish using a tool.

The picture shows a foot-long blackspot tuskfish smashing a clam on a rock until it cracks open, so it can eat the bivalve inside.

The authors of a scientific paper on the matter claim that this meets the definition of tool use first laid out by Jane Goodall in her work with chimps.

Comments

[Heidi Dietrich]

11:59 AM on 07/13/2011

I'm not saying men are stupid. I'm just saying they usually are hesitant to fix things at home. Maybe it's cause they work all day? I don't know. Women work all day too but if they don't do stuff, the house falls apart. The dishes stink, laundry piles up, you know the deal.

[alteredstory]

11:55 AM on 07/13/2011

That doesn't qualify - that's like saying bread is a tool for slicing bread.

[duet2it]

10:02 PM on 07/12/2011

Maybe that's why they call fish, " brain food ".

[wllharrington]

09:59 PM on 07/12/2011

I understand that their are birds who carry clams or other shellfish up in the air and then drop them on rocks to crack open the shells are they also using tools?

[Deegoodhand]

09:14 PM on 07/12/2011

In order to eat the clam the clam must be opened. Who taught the Tusk fish to open the clam in order to eat it? This is NOT an instinctive behavior. The clam has to be placed in his mouth in such a way that the razor edge of the clam strikes the rock. The fish cannot pick up the rock to strike the clam so he uses the only means he has available to achieve the desired result. I find this behavior incredibly intelligent! Trial and error are a learned behavior!

I guess fish are smarter than I thought. My husband and I love to fish and have often thought that certain freshwater fish are intelligent due to the fact that they seem to purposely tease us!

[ooova]

09:12 PM on 07/12/2011

So someone who is tossing wood into a wood chipper is not using a tool?????

[nivrammot1]

08:58 PM on 07/12/2011

And so the search for intelligent life on Earth continues! Didn't find much on this page, did we?

[Al Schrader]

08:54 PM on 07/12/2011

Actually, they all can think. I've seen ants pick-up tiny living mites called aphids and carefully apply them to only the tender new leaves on my prize Thompson's grapefruit tree. The mites produce a tiny drop of sweet dew in exchange for the ride.
So I tested them and fed a nest of fireants a teaspoon of suar from time to time. Now, I can stand barefoot on the mound and not get bit. Someone else will be eaten. Ants can recognize people.
If you use care, you'll find that all creatures can think.

[Frankie Anderson]

08:49 PM on 07/12/2011

I've read a lot of people saying it would be tool use if the fish picked up the rock and smashed the clam, but since it's the other way around it is not. Perhaps that rock is too heavy for this fish to pick up, maybe it is stuck in the ground. Maybe the fish does not want to let go of its food and would rather have what it wants to eat in its mouth than a rock? The fish already has the clam in it's mouth, why go through extra steps, i.e. putting it down, picking up the rock...

[Derek Bluestein]

07:57 PM on 07/12/2011

...this sounds like an Onion news report. How is "animal smashes clam til it breaks open" newsworthy? It's the same damn thing as any animal that smells or senses "food" inside of another object breaking it open in any way it possibly can: i.e. cat with cold cuts. raccoon with garbage cans, dog with packaged steaks, and many, many more instant news classics...

[cat540011]

07:51 PM on 07/12/2011

My dog used to prop her bone inside a play doggie tire to chew on it so she didn't have to hold it...I don't think that makes her a tool user. As yet she has not helped with the vaccuuming. I don't believe this is tool use by a fish. And I would venture to guess that this is not the only fish who does this.

[ecurbwl]

07:50 PM on 07/12/2011

Although I am intrigued, I'll get excited when these fish can use an ipod and drive a ferari.

[John Sabo]

07:36 PM on 07/12/2011

Hate to burst these photographers or ladies bubble "first time on camera"? Huh? Have seen this more times then i can count! On documentarys. If i didnt see? How did i know that fish opened clams like this, then. I cant even belive this is news? How did they think fish got to the Clam? Ate the shell? If this is news worhty on this site. Then i got all kinds of stuff to send, will send you film of my dog sittin on a chair and you can say "first time a dog relizes what a chair actually is used for" you guys are morons. Haa

[cruzuscanga]

07:33 PM on 07/12/2011

can it realy be argued that te fish is using a tool or not? yes, but it is un questionable that there is some sort of inteligence. the fish knows that it can't pick up the rock so instead picks the shell

[hcsoprano160]

07:32 PM on 07/12/2011

Of course animals are intelligent beings; there is really nothing to debate about! As others have already pointed out, many animals exhibit signs of intelligence, and some are more intelligent than others. My cat knows words and phrases in three different languages (English, Welsh, and German), and responds to them intelligently. If I ask her in Welsh if she wants her food, she immediately heads for her food bowl. It only took her one time to learn what the sentence meant, even though she had been taught the same sentence in both English and German prior to that. Just face it: Animals ARE intelligent, and there is no getting around it!

[Frankie Anderson]

08:43 PM on 07/12/2011

My cats also respond when I ask if they are hungry or tell them it is dinner time. Do I think they know what the word means? No. Through conditioning they have associated the tone and sounds I use, "You HUNGWY???" "IT DINNER TIME!", and begin to meow and anticipate their food. I could ask the same question in french and as long as the tone was similar, "TU AS FAIM???", they'd get it quickly.

[hcsoprano160]

06:30 PM on 07/14/2011

Yes, phrases/words for things pertaining to food of course become ingrained into the cat's mind, as that is using a form of Pavlov's classical conditioning. However, the cat, or any animal, knows what the word/phrase means, because they have learned to associate it with that particular stimulus. However, when I say "Wyt ti eisiau dod?" to my cat, she knows that that means "Do you want to come?". She knows that "Bydda i'n gwneud o nawr" means that I am going to close the barn door. She has learned MANY phrases/words that have absolutely nothing to do with food. Animals ARE intelligent, and there's no denying it. I could go on all day long telling about what this animal has learned, etc., because animals CAN and DO learn, and are most certainly intelligent. An excellent book about Commen Ravens, and their intelligence is "Mind of the Raven" by Bernd Heinrich. It's an excellent read, and I would recommend it to anyone questioning whether or not animals are intelligent.