How come, when videos are taken of schools of fish, the fish all swim in perfect unison?

There can be hundreds of them and their movements are identical; changes in direction are made wih no perceptive delay as there would be if they were following a leader.

Why?

Apparently it's a case of watching your neighbour and doing what they do...if they go left, you go left, and if you don't you get eaten.

Having said that, I got that from a documentary, and am in no way a fish expert

Thank goodness you answered that! I wanted to know too.
so it's like me trying to dance? I just have to pick my neighbor wisely!

Yes, they use sight and smell and also get vibrations from their lateral line--a line of sensors that run down the side of the body. Apparently it's sort of a learned behavior, too. The more a fish schools, the better it gets at it.

Mostly for protection, but schooling also comes in handy for other things like survival of eggs. Schooling fish produce oodles of eggs anyway, so if there are tons of them there's a better chance that more will survive.

Me like fish.

Taesma,
Do you like fish to eat or watch? I love to eat catfish! My mom and dad had a fish farm for a short time: seven ponds of catfish. I loved them because I never had to clean them!

This was when I was 8 or 9. Once my sisters and I helped catch the fish. Dad was on one side of a net and my two sisters and I were on the other. He threw feed in the pond and then scooped them up. (Doesn't seem quite fair, eh? )

Really, catfish is the best! (sorry if I sent this thread a different way!)