Clever Fish ‘Drives’ His Robotic Fish Tank to Get Treats From His Scientist Humans
A very clever goldfish drove" his robotic fish tank in order to get a treat from his scientist humans at a Ben-Gurion University of the Negev lab in Beersheba, Israel. These scientists, Shachar Givon and Mattam Samina, have taught six goldfish to operate this rolling robotic vehicle through positive reinforcement.
This is a vehicle that allows fish to drive on land. In our lab, we study mostly fish navigation. Training a fish is just like training any animal or human to do anything. It's a reinforcement learning. So, it doesn't know how to drive until it accidentally reaches the point we want. It gets the little food pallet. Then, it just wants to get there again.
This was part of a larger study that Givon and Samina have since published.
The fish were tasked to drive" the FOV towards a visual target in the terrestrial environment, which was observable through the walls of the tank, and indeed were able to operate the vehicle, explore the new environment, and reach the target regardless of the starting point, all while avoiding dead-ends and correcting location inaccuracies. These results demonstrate how a fish was able to transfer its space representation and navigation skills to a wholly different terrestrial environment, thus supporting the hypothesis that the former possess a universal quality that is species-independent.
This very clever tank was built by Pegamento, a Dutch technology company that helps organizations with automation,which demonstrated the incredible capabilities of this tank with their office fish, Peggy.
Peggy the fish explores the world using image recognition on a mobile device and the speed of 5G. Made possible by the 5G Hub.
In fact, in May 2025, Pegamento appeared on Lo Show dei Record and set a Guinness World Record for the longest distance a fish can travel in a self-driving vehicle on land".
A goldfish in a self-driving vehicle setting a world record? It sounds like a bizarre stunt, but that's exactly what happened on May 15, 2025, on the Italian primetime TV show Lo Show dei Record. The team behind Fish on Wheels" from Pegamento was invited to set a new world record: the longest distance a fish can travel in a self-driving vehicle on land. The result? A remarkable feat of 12 meters and 28 centimeters in one minute.
View this post on InstagramA Different But Similar Robotic Fish Tank
A Fish Becomes the Master of Its Own Destiny Inside a Robotic Fish Tank That It Controls
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