Fish can recognize themselves in photos

Angeline Schellenberg

CN: bullying

In my Baby Book, this Polaroid of a grinning girl in pigtails looks nothing like me. I recall only the taste of those hair elastics’ slick red bobbles rolling on my tongue.  

Our bodies replace billions of cells every day.

October 22, 1973: the date of my first laugh. How happy was I then?

Here’s how much fruit you can take from a display before it collapses.

My sixth word was “pretty.” I’d curtsy at the mirror, calling to the girl inside “Prih-Taaay! Prih-Taaay!”

How to make a mouse smell a smell that doesn’t exist.

Children on the school bus called me contaminated for not knowing how many seconds to look in someone’s eyes before curiosity becomes a stare. 

Here’s how poison dart frogs safely hoard toxins in their skin.

The Science

After a week-long exposure to mirrors, bluestreak cleaner fish recognized themselves in photos. By contrast, when I look at old photos of myself, I wonder: is that really me?

It’s no surprise: the changes to the human body over our lifetime are astounding. Scientists have clocked the speed of cell turnover to 330 billion cells daily or ‘the equivalent of a new you’ every 80-100 days. Despite cell turnover, and even when we can’t call to mind the ‘picture’ of an explicit memory, somatic sensations—such as the pinch of pigtail elastics or the nervous system activation of bullying—linger as implicit memories; in the case of bullying, with dire effects.

Peer bullying may have an even greater impact on mental health (depression, anxiety, self-harm) than mistreatment by a parent. Like mice triggered to smell odors that don’t exist, bullying leads us to believe things about our worth and agency that aren’t true. The ‘pinch’ of childhood bullying may even increase inflammation and pulse rates in victims' 40s, leading to ‘a greater likelihood of early death before one’s mid-50s’—a powerful toxin indeed.

*Title and italicized lines are from these headlines:

Fish can recognize themselves in photos, further evidence they may be self-aware
Our Bodies Replace Billions of Cells Every Day
Here’s how much fruit you can take from a display before it collapses
How to make a mouse smell a smell that doesn’t actually exist
Here’s how poison dart frogs safely hoard toxins in their skin

The Poet

Angeline Schellenberg is the author of the Manitoba Book Award-winning poems about autism and motherhood, Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick Books, 2016), and the KOBZAR-nominated elegy collection, Fields of Light and Stone (University of Alberta Press, 2020). Recently selected for Best Microfiction 2024, Angeline hosts the ‘Speaking Crow’ poetry open mic in Winnipeg, Canada, where she lives with her husband, two adult children, and rescue dog. A contemplative spiritual director, photographer, and mudlark, Angeline is launching Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press, 2024), an askew exploration of hue, tune, and Yahoo.

Next poem: Invention of Zero by Clive Donovan