There is always this doubt on estimating the personalities of other living beings. Just like we humans, do they think? feel good? bad? or anything! well, for all good, the scientists from the British University conducted a research on the Guppy fish, it lasted for few months and the research proved that they do have a personality.

In the research that was published on Monday, it is claimed that fish have complex individual personalities. Scientists from Exeter University in southwest England studied how individual Trinidadian guppy fish behaved in various stressful situations and discovered wide differences in how they responded according to the situations.

On the whole, the researchers studied their coping strategies in situations designed to trigger various levels of stress, discovered that their modes of behavior could not simply be explained as risk-taking or risk-averse.

Tom Houslay, of the university’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation, has said, “When placed in an unfamiliar environment, we found guppies have various strategies for coping with this stressful situation — many attempts to hide, others try to escape, some explore cautiously.”

“The differences between them were consistent over time and in different situations. So, while the behavior of all the guppies changed depending on the situation — for example, all becoming more cautious in more stressful situations — the relative differences between individuals remained intact”, added Houslay.

It is found that the tiny guppies were individually transferred to an unfamiliar tank, to create a mild level of stress, while a higher level of stress was caused by adding models of predatory birds or fish.

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Introduction of predators made the guppies overall more cautious, individuals still retained their distinct personalities. Talking about this, Alastair Wilson, from the CEC, said, “We are interested in why these various personalities exist, and the next phase of our research will look at the genetics underlying personality and associated traits.”

He added, “We want to know how personality relates to other facets of life, and to what extent this is driven by genetic, rather than environmental influences. The goal is really gaining insight into evolutionary processes, how different behavioral strategies might persist as species evolve.”

“Testing the stability of behavioral coping style across stress contexts in the Trinidadian guppy”, the research was entitled this way and later published in the journal Functional Ecology eventually.

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