While my resident expert on theory of mind would disagree, i have proved in multiple instances that my yoyo loaches will in fact mimic me to the best of their abilities. One day, while observing Arnie (the leader of our clan of yoyo's) i yawned unexpectedly. Immediately following this, Arnie decided to yawn as well. It is a very distinct action when a loach yawns as the inside of its mouth protrudes in an obvious manner.

For the next few minutes I pretended to yawn every few seconds and Arnie would yawn in turn. not immediately each time. Sometimes I would have to perform the expression 3 or 4 times before he would follow suit. But i observed this behavior a handful of times in a 10 minute period. I told Virginia about this and she assured me that fish have no theory of mind and therefore cannot imitate my actions.

A few days later, I was watching Aswel, Arnies partner in crime and I decided to see how many times he yawned in a 10 minute period. The result? None, nil, nada...nothing. So then i started to pretend to yawn and sure enough Aswel began to yawn as well.

So whenever they are being social and not hiding from me, i can duplicate this experiment. We have some baby yoyo's that are still to hyper to pay attention, but I am eager to test them as well when they are older. I tried this on the older clown loaches and they didnt seem interested in what i was doing at all. Still, without a doubt, i can say that theres something going on in those little Botia brains...and they are trying to tell me something...perhaps that they are tired of eating blood worms.

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