Two spatial strategies,response strategy and place strategy,are used to solve spatial tasks by animals.Studies of spatial cognition in fishes were rather scarce.As fish with special reproduction ecology,bitterling was expected to be a good candidate for studying the spatial cognition and strategies.In the present study,the capability of spatial learning and memory of Rhodeus ocellatus was studied through comparative experiments with one landmark and with no landmark.The results showed that the R.ocellatus possessed good spatial cognition ability.R.ocellatus could perform better with one landmark in spatial learning and memory,suggesting that different cognition strategies affect the rate of memory formation and the visual cues may play a better role than the fishes’ own sense of direction in promoting memory formation.