I read this book about animal consciousness and the whole time I was thinking of my fish. I've heard people say some strange things about fish like, they have no long term memory past seven seconds. I think that's completely ridiculous. For one thing, how would anyone know the memory span of a fish? Is there any way to measure that?

But no one can tell me my fish are not smart. Anytime anyone walks over to their tank they swim away and hide. When I walk over to their tank they swim to the surface and start looking for food. They get all excited and start swimming fast to the place that opens for food to be dropped in. This all happens before I even reach for the food. Those fish recognize me.

My coworker said, "oh it must be your long hair". What? That's almost as silly as the seven second memory. I have no doubt in my mind that animals can sense people on a whole different level beyond sight recognition. For example, how does a dog start to get excited when his owner is a block away headed home? There are countless examples of things like this and they are not based on hair style. It's more like intuition or a sixth sense or something.

So, while I do believe there are highly complex processes taking place in my fishes minds, I don't think they are going, "Hmmm... who's that approaching our tank? Wait a minute, big smile as though she's happy to see us, and... long brown hair... ooooh, I know! It's that girl who feeds us!" Right and they also have parties on the weekends when no one's here.
  ¶ 10:52 AM