RESEARCH: Emotional fever in fish.

RESEARCH: Emotional fever in fish. A research by a team of scientists has shown that the zebra fish are sentient and as such are capable of exhibiting emotional fever. A paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the team describes their experiments with stressing zebra fish, how the fish reacted, and why they believe it should now be added to the list of organisms labeled as sentient beings. RESEARCH: Emotional fever in fish. Earlier research has shown that mammals and birds and a species of lizard respond to stress by experiencing an increase in body temperature on the order of 1- 2 C°—a reaction that some have suggested indicates that the creature is a sentient being—one that is able to perceive or feels things, whether emotional or physically. The study was conducted by placing 72 zebra fish in a net in water that was 1 C° colder than was normal for them. They also had a control group that was left alone with no changes to their environment. RESEARCH: Emotional fever in fish. All of the fish were then transferred to a tank that had sections heated to different levels, which the fish could access freely if they wished. The team watched to see which section the fish would swim to, and noted that those fish that had been stressed spent more time in the sections that were slightly warmer than normal, than did the control fish. This caused the body temperature of the fish to rise from 2 to 4 C°, which the team claims showed the fish experienced elevated body temperatures in response to stress, demonstrating emotional fever, and therefore they should qualify as sentient beings.