'Smart and Curious' Pufferfish Learns to Swim Onto Platform for Health Checks
A “smart and curious” pufferfish at Melbourne Zoo has learnt to swim onto a platform so that keepers can do health checks “with no stress involved,” the zoo said.
Video from Zoos Victoria shows a 12-year-old pufferfish approaching the platform a keeper is holding, and getting rewarded with a piece of prawn.
Melbourne Zoo said that “after over a month of training he was comfortable to swim up to keepers for them to check his eyes, fins and scales”.
The training means the fish is “able to voluntarily participate in his own healthcare with no stress involved,” keeper Sakura Parker-Iida said. “As a species globefish are incredibly curious and intelligent, so this training is also mentally stimulating for him.” Credit: Melbourne Zoo via Storyful
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