Three-second short-term memory ... why I want to be a guppy!

I have a little fish tank ... well not really little ... kind of little ... 3 gallon size. Think, 3 gallon milk containers, only filled with water and artificial plants and a little kind of bridge, and rocks, and, of course water. And two little guppies.

Guppies are 'tropical' fish. They expect and like 'warm' water, but are very tolerant, like they really have a choice.

I have two fan-tail guppies. They are both male.

This is visually evident immediately upon seeing them, yet I am always, not almost always, always asked how I know that.

So ... here are two important, but little known, apparently, fish facts.

Like most of the animal kingdom, and certainly all of the plant kingdom, the male of the species is always way ahead in terms of beauty. Consider a male vs. a female cardinal (that is a type of bird, OK). The male is vibrant red ... he almost 'defines' the color 'red'. The female is about the color of warm turd. Unlucky.

A male guppy is vibrantly colored .. red, orange, blue, etc. . A female guppy looks like death.  So it is easy to sex a guppy.

But here is a little known fact, that, as usual on this blog, will change your life. Your life is one way NOW, and in a second, it will be different forever.

A guppy, all fish actually, have a short-term memory of approximately three seconds!

When my guppy number-one, say Rocky, meets guppy number-two, say Rich, they say 'hello', in guppy terms, whatever. Then Rocky takes a swing to the left, then to the right, then meets Rich again. It is like 'hello new guppy'. No remembrance of the previous meeting.

Even a small tank, like a 3 galllon one, represents a lifetime to a guppy. With each circuit of the tank, the little guppy is seeing each feature, rock, water, plant, etc., like for the first time. Each circuit is a brand-new adventure.

Think how wonderful life would be if it worked that way for us lowly humans. Guilt would certainly go out the window, along with a long list of other annoying things.

I wanna be a guppy so bad.

Rich