What is it about?

Whether fish are sentient and capable of suffering, remains highly controversial. In an earlier study it was suggested that emotional fever, a transient stress-induced rise in body temperature, appeared only in these reptiles, birds and mammals in association with the evolution of consciousness. We revisited the question, using zebrafish held in a tank that allowed them to move freely through a gradient of temperatures. Stressed fish spent significantly more time at higher temperatures, dosing themselves up to a 3oC rise in body temperature. Our demonstration that zebrafish do indeed show emotional fever removes a key argument for lack of sentience in fish and has important implications for fish welfare and for the evolution of consciousness in vertebrates.

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Why is it important?

Our demonstration that zebrafish do indeed show emotional fever removes a key argument for lack of sentience in fish and has important implications for fish welfare and for the evolution of consciousness in vertebrates.

Perspectives

Fish, seen as sentient, conscious animals, capable of suffering and experience emotions is not a novel vision and has been studied and discussed by several other authors over time. It is an important evolutionary question that goes far beyond fish. Emotional fever is only one of the ways fish and other vertebrates have to mitigate stress situations and further studies are required to unravel the underlying mechanisms. This research opens a whole new world of possibilities to develop further studies on cognition, welfare and sentience in fish.

Dr Sonia Rey Planellas
University of Stirling

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This page is a summary of: Fish can show emotional fever: stress-induced hyperthermia in zebrafish, Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, November 2015, Royal Society Publishing,
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.2266.
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