Behavioral experiments demonstrate that goldfish can remember specific colors, shapes, and feeding schedules for up to five months, completely debunking the three-second memory myth.

A closer look

Behavioral experiments demonstrate that goldfish can remember specific colors, shapes, and feeding schedules for up to five months, completely debunking the three-second memory myth. They can even be trained to push levers for food and navigate complex mazes, retaining the learned spatial information long after the initial training sessions end. We invented a completely fake statistic about their stupidity just so we wouldn't feel bad about keeping them trapped in tiny, unfiltered glass bowls on our kitchen counters. A carnival prize fish actually has better memory retention than you do when trying to recall a password you just reset literally five minutes ago. Next time you stare into a fish tank, know that the goldfish vividly remembers your face and is silently judging your terrible life choices