Exploratory behaviour of goldfish Carassius auratus

The exploratory locomotor behaviour of twenty-one naïve goldfish in a homogeneous open field during 20-hr periods was monitored and analysed into spatial and temporal characteristics. The fish did not randomly explore the entire field. Locomotion is organized spatially and temporally. The fish moves about in one specific area during a specific time after which it displaces the centre of its activity to another area. The time spent in earch area is a function of rate of activity, expressed by a linear equation and, during the initial 4 hr, the elapsed time in the novel environment (novelty content). The area-by-area exploration was never replaced by random exploration throughout the environment during the 20-hr periods of observation.