Schooling of light reflecting fish
Schooling of light reflecting fish
One of the hallmarks of the collective movement of large schools of pelagic fish are waves of shimmering flashes that propagate across the school, usually following an attack by a predator. Such flashes arise when sunlight is reflected off the specular (mirror-like) skin that characterizes many pela...
The main goal of this work is three-fold. First, to establish whether models of schooling fish can generate realistic flash waves that propagate across the school in response to an attack. Second, to explore the possibility that school members are using this source of information themselves, and test how that can, in principle, affect the attack-response behavior. Third, to demonstrate that flash patterns indeed contain accessible information relating to the dynamics of the school, the behavior of individuals within it (in particular, their response to threats) and to the nature of the attack.