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Tool use in the tuskfish Choerodon schoenleinii?

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-12-06, 00:00 authored by Alison Jones, C Brown, S Gardner
Jane Goodall describes tool use as the use of an external object as a functional extension of mouth or hand in the attainment of an immediate goal (van Lawick-Goodall 1970). Tool use is oftenobserved in a foraging context in a wide range of species, and complex feeding behaviors are not uncommon among marinefishes. For instance, wrasses crunch sea urchins against corals and use anvils to smash food into more manageable pieces(Pas´ko 2010, reviewed in Brown et al. 2006). In spite of the anecdotal evidence for the use of tools in marine fishes, there arefew documented cases, particularly those based on observations in the wild. Here, we present evidence of a black spot tuskfish,Choerodon schoenleinii, Valenciennes, 1839 using a rock as an anvil to open a cockleshell that conforms to Goodall’s definition of tool use

Funding

Category 1 - Australian Competitive Grants (this includes ARC, NHMRC)

History

Volume

30

Issue

3

Start Page

865

End Page

865

Number of Pages

1

eISSN

1432-0975

ISSN

0722-4028

Location

Germany

Publisher

Springer

Language

en-aus

Peer Reviewed

  • No

Open Access

  • No

External Author Affiliations

Centre for Environmental Management; Institute for Resource Industries and Sustainability (IRIS); Macquarie University;

Era Eligible

  • No

Journal

Coral reefs : journal of the International Society for Reef Studies.