Murder in the Reeftank

[Minh Nguyen]

...
I think this backs up my point They've only been bringing food back to their anemone for the last 30 or so years that they've been in our aquariums, because they don't do it in nature! This is not enough time to evolve behavior. If you didn't read my quote from the Anemonefish book, read it now. I'm sure these folks know a lot more than all of us about the behavior of these fish.

I think they do it in nature but only very rarely. As your quote of Dr. Fautin & Allen "In nature, they do not encounter large particles of food, so they eat their food where it is found" the Drs. stated that they did not observed the behavior but this is because the clown fish are not exposed to larger chunk of food. One should not use absolute in nature. Just because one does not usually see this, it does not mean that it does not happen. Plus how can one observed clown fish in their natural environment? We cannot stay under the water for long with Scuba equipments. The act of observing the clown fish will cause it to act unnaturally (a massive animal right in from of the anemone will intimidate the fish. We can't even stay there long enough for the fish to get use to us). I argue that the behavior we observe in the aquarium is more natural than what we see when we don on a Scuba suite and sit in front of the anemone and clown fishes in the Ocean.

Minh, you never answered my question about the shrimp goby... Do you believe, then, that an anemone would die if not fed regularly by a clown? This could actually be tested on wild anemones by removing clowns and preventing predation by butterflyfish.

About the shrimp, I don't think it have any relevant to the clown fish discussion. Just because shrimp does not feed the goby in the aquarium does not mean Clownfish does not bring large chunk of food to the anemone in our aquarium. They obviously do as we often observed. BTW, the clown fish only bring large chunk of food that they cannot eat to the anemone not small chunk that they can swallow. I don't believe that the anemones have to have the food from the clownfish to survive. However, the anemones that have clown fish that feed it will more likely to survive and will grow quicker. We do know that if the anemone died, the fish will die too and vice versa. Don't you think that the fish that bring food that they don't need and can't eat would have more chance of survive (because the anemone is more likely to survive) than those that just let these food drifted by.

Minh Nguyen

 

[wombat1]

Minh, I brought up the shrimp goby because it's another example of a symbiotic relationship. Both partners are doing things that benefit themselves and AS A BYPRODUCT it benefits the other organism. I've never heard of a relationship where one partner goes out of its way to help the other.

You are right, of course, about the difficulty of observing "natural" behavior.

I argue that the behavior we observe in the aquarium is more natural than what we see when we don on a Scuba suite and sit in front of the anemone and clown fishes in the Ocean.

I partially agree, in some aquariums . When we start throwing in other clowns, though, things change a bit. :roll:
I wonder how hard it would be to mount cameras underwater to watch clowns around the clock. Eventually they would get used to the camera and hopefully exhibit truly natural behavior.

Don't you think that the fish that bring food that they don't need and can't eat would have more chance of survide (because the anemone is more likely to survide) than those that just let these food driffed by.

I don't know, but there's a definite risk involved with leaving the anemone to catch that food as well, which might decrease the chance of survival. The value of that food and the risk of catching it are impossible to quantify. But I like debating about it!

 

[brewerbob]

1. All you have to do is looking at the dams build by two species to answer that question. Comunicating and hunting instint is one thing, tinking and problem solving is another. You asked what is so speciall about man, the answer is that they are smart animals. Most animals that are smart are mamals. There are exception. Maybe Octopus have high inteligent level. I cann't think of an other animal that can 'solve problem' and not a mamals.

The act of killing an other animal that are almost at large as themself to eat it require the ability to react to the actions of the preys. This is why predators are brainier than prey. If they are not smart they will not able to capture their prey and will starve.

That is why I point out the examples of 'smart animals' you mentioned are mamals and predetors. Clown fishes are neither.

2. Hey this is cheating. You can't argue like this. Give specific example

3. We know that BTA is not danderous to Ocellaris clown because many Ocellaris live in BTA in aquarium. How can you argue that my Ocellaris learn to live in my H. magnifica? He have nover seen a anemone prior to go into my tank. He have never seen a clown fish in the anemone before. He just dive into the anemone (H. magnifica but not the BTA) within 15 minutes of placing them together.

I never said that fish can not learn. Tang will eat Nori clip. If you have a tank that does this in the tank, the rest of the tangs will copy him within a few hours. If you don't have one, it may take you a week to teach your tang to eat from the Nori clip. I am sure that my clown reconize that the H. magnifica is the right anemone while the jBTA is the wrong anemone because instict taught them to prefer one over the other. It cannot be anything but instint.

4. This is a clownfish we talking about. Man is different because we are alot smarter. Thour my reason, I cannot make any conclution other than the fact that my Ocellaris action is purely instinct.

5. You are wrong here. I am not saying that all the thing a child should fear is instinct. I only said that the fear of height is the one instinct that a normal child have. I have two sons and spend lots of time watching them. Do you have any children?

6. I am not sure if penguins fear man or not. How ever, if they do not, the lack of fear can be explain by the fact that penguins have not being exposed to man though out evolution. As a species, they do not have Human as a prgramed predator of penguins.

However, if you get a lab raised rat that hve never seen a snake before and put it into a snake cage, I am sure that it would be react in terror even before the snake start to stalk it. Rat have in their instinct to be affraid of snake, their mortal enemy thoughout evolution.

Bob,
It is nice to argue with you.
Cheers and Peace,
Minh Nguyen

1. Smart animals equal mammals? That doesn't work very well. The Lion is a mammal and the water buffolo is a mammal. Let's play preditor and prey. I get to be preditor!

How about brain size to body size? A water buffolo has a bigger brain than a cat but I haven't seen any buffolo (water or other) crouch down and stalk wheat!! :wink:

I don't think the size of prey is a very good indicator of intelligence either. To steal your snake, he will eat a wild pig. The snake is longer but they probably weigh close to the same. A croc will take down a zebra.

2. I can't give you specifics for 2 reasons: A) I don't know of any and I'm too lazy to research it and B) most of the research is on mammals. The plains of Africa, etc. Who wants to watch an hour long documentary on the dangerous and elusive clown fish? Ok, but you guys aren't the target demographic of research grants.

3. We know humans can live in an alley, drinking Ripple and living in a used Frigidair box. We also know humans can live in 30,000 square foot homes that cost $30 million (Bill Gates). If you don't want to play preditator and prey, how about rich and poor? I get to be Bill.

4. That doesn't make any sense. I have a hypothesis and the facts don't support it so the facts must be wrong? WHY is man smarter? WHY is the fish's action instinct? Just for the sake of arguement, let's assume the clown's brain to body ratio is in the neighborhood of chimps, humans, octopus, etc. (I don't know if the clown is even close or not) Why do the clowns actions have to be instinct? If it were instinct, she should chase everything smaller than her into the anemone including the (I assume) smaller tang that someone mentioned.

5. Children do not have fear or instinct of being injured. I have two children. A boy at 7 and a girl at 6. They fear heights, they fear the stove (to a lesser extent). But my point was kids or even toddlers. I was talk about infants (just walking or younger). If they had instinct, you wouldn't keep them from playing near stairs. You could leave matches out since they would instinctively fear fire. You fall down = hurt, this is something learned not instinct. Height has nothing to do with it except the higher you fall from the more it hurts.

6. I'll give you the rat and snake. If something that much bigger than me is sniffing at me, I'd be damn scared. Pengiuns either aren't smart enough to fear man or man isn't big enough. The pemgiuns fear sharks and killer whales, man isn't that big (regardless of what their wives say).

 

[Minh Nguyen]

1. Smart animals equal mammals? That doesn't work very well. The Lion is a mammal and the water buffolo is a mammal. Let's play preditor and prey. I get to be preditor!

I did not say that all mammals are smart. I did say that almost all 'smart' animals are mammals. The clown fish is not a mammal.

How about brain size to body size? A water buffolo has a bigger brain than a cat but I haven't seen any buffolo (water or other) crouch down and stalk wheat!! :wink:

How about it? Mammals have the highest brain to body ratio, with man have the highest brain to body ratio. The clown fish is very low in this scale.

I don't think the size of prey is a very good indicator of intelligence either. To steal your snake, he will eat a wild pig. The snake is longer but they probably weigh close to the same. A croc will take down a zebra.

I put this out just to point out that in order for a predator to take down a prey that is large relative to its size, it either have lots of muscles and sharp teeth and claws or it is smarter than the prey. Humans are weakling, but we can kill the great blue whale, the largest animal alive today. Almost all the animals that we consider smart are predators (at least omnivores, not herbivores)

2. I can't give you specifics for 2 reasons: A) I don't know of any and I'm too lazy to research it and B) most of the research is on mammals. The plains of Africa, etc. Who wants to watch an hour long documentary on the dangerous and elusive clown fish? Ok, but you guys aren't the target demographic of research grants.

Then you should not use it as an example in an argument.

3. We know humans can live in an alley, drinking Ripple and living in a used Frigidair box. We also know humans can live in 30,000 square foot homes that cost $30 million (Bill Gates). If you don't want to play preditator and prey, how about rich and poor? I get to be Bill.

????

4. That doesn't make any sense. I have a hypothesis and the facts don't support it so the facts must be wrong?

????

WHY is man smarter?

This is obvious

WHY is the fish's action instinct? Just for the sake of arguement, let's assume the clown's brain to body ratio is in the neighborhood of chimps, humans, octopus, etc. (I don't know if the clown is even close or not) Why do the clowns actions have to be instinct? If it were instinct, she should chase everything smaller than her into the anemone including the (I assume) smaller tang that someone mentioned.

The clownfish brain to body ratio is not anywhere close to Human and Chimps. This particular action has to be instinct because they don't have enough brain to think. They can't think. I only heard of clown fish sometime physically drag other clown fish and stuff the hapless clown fish into their anemone. I have never heard of any tang suffer this fate

5. Children do not have fear or instinct of being injured. I have two children. A boy at 7 and a girl at 6. They fear heights, they fear the stove (to a lesser extent). But my point was kids or even toddlers. I was talk about infants (just walking or younger). If they had instinct, you wouldn't keep them from playing near stairs. You could leave matches out since they would instinctively fear fire. You fall down = hurt, this is something learned not instinct. Height has nothing to do with it except the higher you fall from the more it hurts.

If your children were younger there are things that you can do which will show that they are afraid of height. Children do not associate stair with height. They cannot reason that there are successive steps and they can roll down these steps. All they see is the next step is right there, not a long way down. Children do not fear fire and do not associate matches with fire. They do not fear stoves because they do not know that the stoves are hot and it can burn them. Things that are fear are things that build in from many thousand years of evolution, not something that developed over several hundred years.
Have you ever been in high places where there are minimal railing, or better, where the floor is a steel mesh, not a solid floor? The next time when you are in such situation, you will feel your stomach tighten. We have enough brain to suppress this fear and not let it paralyzes us. Some of us does this better than other. This reaction to height will lessen with repeated exposure. It is there nevertheless. That is the instinctive fear of height.

6. I'll give you the rat and snake. If something that much bigger than me is sniffing at me, I'd be damn scared. Pengiuns either aren't smart enough to fear man or man isn't big enough. The pemgiuns fear sharks and killer whales, man isn't that big (regardless of what their wives say).

Have you ever seen a rat get fed live to a snake? The rat is terrified even before the snake start moving.

Minh Nguyen