Swarm - Definition and Overview

This article is about swarms in biology. For other uses of the term, see Swarm (disambiguation).

School of fish

The term swarm (schooling or swarming) is applied to fish, birds and insects and describes a behavior of an aggregation (school) of animals of similar size and body orientation, generally cruising in the same direction. A swarm of honeybees is a more specific term, referring to the reproductive action of an entire colony of bees (as opposed to the reproduction of single bees); see Queen bee and Honeybee life cycle.

Underwater video (looping) of a school of Atlantic herring Clupea harengus on its migration to their spawning grounds in the Baltic. With such high speed they can migrate over thousands of kilometers. Some scientists are of the oppinion that cruising in a close group has advantages in the energy consumption, one fish utilizing the pressure field created by the next fish. In the North Atlantic herring cruise between Norway and Greenland every year.

See also

• List of swarming animals
• Herd

External links

• SwarmWiki (http://wiki.swarm.org/)