Wild herring prove fast organizers

Watching fish shoal reveals a turning point in density

Eat your hearts out, people struggling to walk three dogs (or one cat).

SHOAL TIME A wide herring shoal coalesces briskly on the northern flank of Georges Bank around sunset (at 18:08) on Oct. 3, 2006. Starting as dispersed fish (A), a few gatherings of fish (B) start a chain reaction of forming an increasingly dense shoal within tens of minutes (B-F).