The "Gathering Together Family"

Xi+Wang

To protect yourself?

Come and gather together

In the capricious ocean, being single means life danger——for in the dark sea water, predators are lying dormant, ready to attack from the unexpected directions. If you have no strength or speed, you will be others food. Therefore the weak animals in the sea invariably adopt the same strategy to protect their own safety——that is to gather together. They gather little by little until the group of thousands or even hundreds of millions of individuals forms, the strength of the group will protect the individuals. The most famous example is sardine.

The huge army of sardines venture into the world gathering together as a ball

People always use the saying “ packed like sardines” to describe the crowded people, it may refer to the cans crammed full of sardines on the table, and also may refer to the huge group formed by the sardines in the ocean. Strictly speaking, the sardines we usually say are actually a joint name of many kinds of fishes belong to the clupeiformes and clupeidae. Now about 21 kinds of fishes can be called sardines. Those famous for colony are always fishes of the genus sardines. These fishes are generally weak in body, not longer than dozens of centimeters, which makes them have no strength to strike back. Except human, the dolphin, whale, shark, tuna, sailfish and some seabirds all see them as delicious food. It can be said that the sardines are the most frequently appearing fishes on the marine predators menu.