THE SIMULATION OF FISH SCHOOLS IN COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTAL-DATA

Fish do not need a leader or external stimuli for their school organiz ation. The model presented shows that the group movement of a school c an be maintained by interactions in which each individual controls its movement in relation to its neighbours. Our three-dimensional simulat ions reproduce the typical characteristics of real schools, if the beh aviour of the single fish is based on four patterns: attraction, repul sion, parallel orientation and averaging the influences of at least fo ur neighbours. The results of our simulations agree with experimental data in many points, as is demonstrated here for the polarization, nea rest neighbour distance and internal dynamics.