Three-spined stickleback robot

The robot opens up new possibilities for studying fish behaviour and group dynamics, helping to predict fish migration routes and assessing the impact of human intervention on fish populations.

’We’ve proven it’s possible to use robotic fish to study relationships between individual fish and shoals,’ said PhD student Jolyon Faria, who led the experiments.

’Because the robotic fish is accepted by the shoal, we can use it to control one or several individuals, which allows us to study quite complex situations such as aggressive, cooperative, anti-predator and parental behaviour.’

The computer-controlled replica - dubbed Robofish by its creators John Dyer, Dr Dean Waters and Natalie Holt - is a plaster-cast model of a three-spined stickleback with an acetate fin, painted to mimic the colouration and markings of a real fish. The scientists needed to prove that Robofish was accepted into the group sufficiently for the fish to respond to the robot like a normal shoal member.