Have you seen fish using tools?

Let us know! We are conducted a research project on fish tool use and your sightings are useful. Contact us here.

You might be the first person to discover that this fish species is able to use tools 🤯

We are looking forward for your anecdotes, pictures and videos about tool use or any clever fish behaviour.

What to look for?

The fish holds a prey item in its mouth and strikes it quickly and repeatedly on a rock.

In other words, the fish uses the rock as a tool to help it break open its prey!

Check out the videos below to see the behaviour displayed by small and large fish with different types of prey.

Video by C.E O'Brien. Their Instagram
Video by R. Dunn
Video by Susan Prior. Her website
Video by A. Harborne and B. Tholan

Where to look for?

🌊 Wherever there are fish! In coral reefs, aquariums, kelp forests, rivers...

What to do?

➡️ Everything is explained on the website here.
Any information is helpful, so don't hesitate.

If you have never seen this behaviour, open your eyes 🧐 You might see a fish using a rock as a tool very soon.

What will you contribute?

This type of tool use is called "anvil use". Anvil use has never been properly studied in fish. We know 20 species that are able to use rocks as anvils from observations on few individuals. We might discover many more thanks to your help!

Your observations will also help answering one of most intriguing questions in the field of tool use:
why don't all animals use tools?
Learn more about it on the website here.

Follow-up

Please contact us if you have any comments or would like to get more involved.

What will happen to the information you gave us is explained here

Check the project news on the website here, on Twitter or Instagram .