The fish seen above is the Blackspot Tuskfish. These fish can be found off of the coast of Australia, and are named such due to their tusk-like front teeth. This particular fish, however, was seen carrying cockles (a variety of shellfish) to a nearby rock, where it would repeatedly crack the shell in order to eat the fleshy parts inside. The picture was taken in 2006 by professional diver Scott Gardner, but was just now published with the findings of the research on the fish. Reviewers argued back and forth whether or not the fish was actually using a tool, since the classic definition of tool use was based on humans and chimpanzees. If the research holds up, it would show that fish possess some since of cognitive thought. Other animals to use tools include chimpanzees, dolphins, crows, and octopuses. It is amazing to me to discover how truly intelligent many animals are. Many times in the media, the human race is portrayed as being much more developed than our animal counterparts, but stories such as this prove that many different species of animals use the same methods in order to survive. Perhaps our use of tools is more developed than bashing a shellfish against a rock, but in the end, both the human and the blackspot tuskfish are using tools.
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Photo taken by Scott Gardner, found on
nationalgeographic.com
Story found on
nationalgeographic.com
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