FISH play follow-the-leader to find food. If one fish knows what it’s doing,
the rest of the shoal will follow it, says a Canadian biologist.
Stéphan Reebs of Moncton University in New Brunswick trained shoals of
golden shiners to expect food at a certain place and time each day in their
tanks. Then he replaced some or all of the 12 fish in each shoal with untrained
counterparts.
Shoals containing a few experienced individuals spent much more time in the
feeding area than shoals with no trained fish. The effect was stronger when
there were more fish that knew…
