A new Australian study has insisted that the ages old belief that a fish's memory lasts a mere 3 seconds is "rubbish", while also saying the these creatures are well capable of deception and learning.

An adjunct researcher at the Institute for Land, Water and Society at Charles Stuart University in Albury, New South Wales, Dr. Kevin Warbuton has been analyzing and studying fish for over 30 years now, and he has stressed that they are much better when it comes to memory than people have been giving them credit for.

"It's absolute rubbish. There's been a lot of work done over the last 15 years on learning and memory in fish and it has been found that fish are quite sophisticated. Fish can remember prey types for months; they can learn to avoid predators after being attacked once and they retain this memory for several months", he said.

The research has been concentrated mainly on the country's freshwater fish, more-so in the Southeast Queensland area.

The study has interestingly revealed that fish are much capable of learning, reflecting "human-like behaviors" of deception and can judge which situations would benefit them the most.