| Author: Peter Del Bosque
Founder of Socialeaf, Peter's bio can be found by clicking on this Google+ link.
The Zebrafish, also known by their scientific name as Danio reri, a member of the minnow family, is a tropical freshwater fish that can be found in freshwater streams in the southeastern Himalayas and is commonly sold as an aquatic pet in pet stores everywhere. Their horizontal black and white stripe pattern is the characteristic that have given the Zebrafish their name.
Like all fishes, Zebrafish use certain cues to interact and communicate with other fish of their own kind. These certain cues are often body gestures such as fin movement patterns, tail speed, and full body movements. It’s difficult to understand the complexity at which fish use body gestures to communicate, however, you can better understand how this form of communication works by simply observing a school of fish such as mackerel or sardines. The fish are capable of communicating instantaneously through body language. Schools of fish can turn on a dime or dive in an instant from predators. They aren’t verbally communicating and they sure aren’t making facial expressions. They’re reading patterns in body movement at a rapid pace. Body language communication can also be used to ward off predators, to attract a mate, or to intimidate a rival of the same species.
In a recent study scientists at the Polytechnic Institute of New York decided to try to understand fish communication more in depth with the help of a robot fish. The team built the robotic fish based on what characteristics they already knew were interesting and attractive to Zebrafish.
The fish was built having an enlarged belly, (which by the way is attractive to both sexes of the Zebrafish), and having a tail fin, also called a caudal fin, which could be manipulated electronically to wiggle just like another Zebrafish. To further enhance the looks of the robot fish, the robot fish was painted to have zebra stripes, a yellow head and large eyes.
To test the effectiveness of their robotic fish, the scientists put together an aquarium large enough to accommodate the size of the robot fish and then placed a clear acrylic panel to separate the robot from the living Zebrafish. When the scientists introduced the live Zebrafish to the robotic Zebrafish, the naturally curious Zebrafish inspected the robot fish. However, when the scientists manipulated the robot’s body movements, they were surprised to find out that a rapidly beating tail attracted the fish whereas a slower moving tail caused the curious Zebrafish to lose interest.
So, what does this all mean to us and science? Well, it’s difficult to say how accurate this test was and how significant the findings are. There seems to be too many factors involved to make any real sense of the observation. For one thing, fisherman often use fishing lures as a means to attract fish, whether the lure is brightly colored, ugly looking, or a simple rubber worm, shaking the lure will often draw enough attention for the fish to strike. Also, with a barrier of plexiglass, it is hard to determine how the fish will ultimately respond. Once the Zebrafish bump into the plexiglass, they can’t interact with the robot fish and so there is no chance of studying their natural behavior.
This study has revealed important information about the behavior of fish and the way they communicate but it would be interesting to see what would happen if there was no plexiglass shield and if the robotic fish was the same size as the Zebrafish. Only time will tell once more tests have been made.
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