Do Fish Play Games?

Have you ever tried playing with the fish in your aquarium with a laser light? It turns out they are quite fascinated with chasing it and even competing with each other to catch it. Some might say they are just trying to catch something to eat, but fish don't tend to eat fluorescent bits of food that don't smell. This video is a supplemental illustration that goes along with a scientific paper that must have been a lot of fun to produce, called Gills Just Want to Have Fun: Can Fish Play Games, Just like Us? They tested laser lights on 66 different fish species, and found that 80% of them showed inquisitive behavior. Whether we can define this as "play" is another question, but that all comes down to how we define words. They sure seem to be having fun! Another conclusion from the study is that the best color laser for fish play is red. (via Boing Boing)