For a zebrafish, “don't drink and swim” warning may not work at all.
High on booze, a zebrafish nearly doubled her speed in an experiment, leaving scientists with results that may help them find why some people on a high behave like weirdos in a party.
Researchers wanted to know how the presence of non-drinking zebrafish would impact the social behaviour of one drunkard among them.
The researchers found that because the tank was full of sober fish, it gave the tipsy swimmer a case of hyperactivity to get noticed.
“Perhaps the drunk fish moved at warp speed to indicate that it wanted to interact with its tank-mates,” said researchers from New York University.
This may throw light on how people high on alcohol normally behave in a social gathering.
“The behaviour of zebrafish suggests that the stimulus provided to the drunk zebrafish by the non-treated ones - their presence in the tank - was able to change the way a drunk fish responds to alcohol,” the researchers noted.
