ROBOTS swim in schools 'school' to save energy, study finds

It has been known for centuries that many fish swim in schools, with large groups moving in unison. But scientists have never fully known why, and have been unable to prove how this behaviour benefits them. Now, European researchers have used robotic fish to show it it is up to 13.5 per cent more efficient for fish to swim in a group than alone, allowing them to save energy. This had been the long-standing theory, but it had never been conclusively proven. European researchers used robotic fish to prove it is because they allow fish to save energy and up to 13.5 per cent more efficient than swimming alone Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB), the University of Konstanz, and Peking University, set about building a lifelike robot to test the hypothesis.