Richard Collins: Study shows fish can recognise their mirror image

A paper just published suggests that fish have some remarkable mental faculties — some fish are self-aware

Cleaner-fish recognise self in a mirror via self-face recognition like humans. Masanori Kohda et al.

When it reaches the kitchen, the flesh of large animals becomes English version of old French words ‘porc’ ‘mouton’ or ‘boeuf’. Why do we replace the ancient terms ‘pig’ ‘sheep’ and ‘cow’ with these more polite ones? What do our elaborate table-manner rituals really signify? Are we trying to distance ourselves from the horrors of the abattoir?

Fish doesn’t trigger such guilt; penitents were permitted to eat it during Lent and on Fridays — nor does ’fish’ become ‘poisson’ at table.