WEIRD FACTS ABOUT
FISH
Aristotle recognised 117 species of fish. The first fish in space were South American guppies which spent 48 days in orbit on the Russian Salyut 5 in 1976.
Twenty years later, researchers at the University of New Brunswick published their findings that female guppy fish prefer brightly coloured males to drab ones.
Research has also shown that goldfish remember things better in cold water than warm water.
Also, if you put a goldfish into water laced with alcohol, then teach it something and put it back into clean water, it is liable to forget what it learned; but if it is then put back into the alcoholic water, it will remember it again.
This research is unlikely to have been done in Ohio, where it is illegal to get a fish drunk.
It is also illegal to carry fishing tackle in a cemetery in the town of Muncie, Indiana, and it is illegal to fish on horseback in Utah.
As a useful rule of thumb, it may be helpful to know that the top speed of a fish is generally equal to about ten times its own length per second.
Only 1,506 tonnes of shark and swordfish were eaten in the UK in 2001 compared with 244,366 tonnes of cod and haddock.
Every second almost eight portions of fish and chips are sold in the UK.
'School' as in 'school of fish' comes from the Middle Dutch 'schole', meaning a troop.
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