Startled goldfish dart away from sudden sounds because of sensory organs along the animals' flanks that sense sound vibrations and communicate with a pair of neurons in the brain.
Donald Faber and his colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York report that nerve cells in the lateral line of goldfish (Carassius auratus; pictured) detect sounds as vibrations. They then transmit these signals to a single pair of Mauthner cells in the brain in less than a millisecond. Each Mauthner cell triggers muscle contractions along one side of the body, directing the fish away from the sound.
When the researchers disabled the fishes' lateral lines, their escape responses lost all directionality. However, blindfolding fish did not affect their directional behaviour, suggesting that the animals rely mainly on the lateral line to localize the source of sudden sounds.
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How sounds make goldfish skittish. Nature 478, 9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/478009d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/478009d
