They are well known for swimming around in circles and having a 7 second memory but a group of spangled emperors up at the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia claim that they are far more intelligent than people give them credit for.

“We encounter a range of different people swimming in our sea,” said the fish. “And none of them do it as well as we can. They have to wear additional equipment to help them breathe under the water, and if they want to have a meal or a nap they actually have to leave the water, whereas we can live our whole lives under the sea without needing to quickly pop onto dry land to wolf down a sandwich.

If we’re feeling peckish we know where to go to find a tasty mollusk or crustacean and we don’t need to go to the great expense of buying sunscreen because we create our own UV protecting chemical called Gadusol.”

The fish claim that they are also very accurate when it comes to telling the time. “Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon at 3:30 a large group of legs congregate in the water at Coral Bay with the sole intention of feeding us.”

British backpacker Caroline Gough who turned up to participate in the most recent feeding of the fish said “The fish are amazing. They turned up on the dot of three thirty. You could set your watch by them.”

The fish said “that’s another area where we are superior to humans. They need all those smart phones, smart watches and sat navs to tell them where to go, how far they’ve travelled and what the time is. We don’t need any of that stuff. We already know all that we need to know.”