A Robotic Fish Camera Filmed Herring By Following Their Farts
A robotic fish filmed millions of herring by following the sounds of the shoals’ farts.
The remarkable footage was shot off the coast of British Columbia, Canada for the 2023 television show Spy in the Ocean, made by the BBC and aired on PBS, but has only just been uploaded to YouTube.
In the video, the animatronic puppet, equipped with a camera, homes in on the shoal of herring by following a strange clicking noise.
“The clicking is made by the herring,” explains narrator David Tennant. “As the shoals build, so do the clicks.”
It turns out the clicks are coming from “bubbles squeezed from their swim bladders”. This type of flatulence apparently guides the other herring following in their wake with the most experienced herring taking the lead.
However, all this farting attracts predators, namely sea lions which herd the herring toward the shore. Another spy cam — a bald eagle flying above the water — films the sea lions’ technique in action.
“They trap them in the shallows where they are easier to pick off,” explains the narrator.
The surviving herring dive to the kelp to lay their eggs but they are not safe either. Surf scoters, also attracted to the commotion, start bobbing beneath the waves to eat as many of the herring eggs as possible.
However, there are six million eggs in every square meter which means “billions upon billions” will survive. But only if the male herring — which have also run the gauntlet of marauding sea lions — arrive to fertilize the eggs with their milt.
The milt, also known as soft herring roe, clouds the water and eventually makes the footage from the robotic fish camera unusable.
‘Functional and Beautiful’ Spy Cameras
Spy in The Ocean is the aquatic follow-up series to Spy in The Wild which aired five years ago and used similar technology to film animals.
According to Televisual, Spy in The Wild producer Rob Pilley says it is an “industrial process” to build the animatronic animals that film the show, encompassing robotics, programming, and aesthetics.
“You have to make them functional, practical, and beautiful,” Pilley explains.
Inside the spy creatures are remote-controlled miniature cameras, shooting in 4K, and often hidden in the eye sockets of the animatronics.
Spy in The Wild producer Matthew Gordon says the cameras come from a wide range of manufacturers but have been stripped down and modified to fit inside the spy creatures.
The producers say that deploying such expensive camera equipment in the wild can be an extremely stressful process, with producers fearful that it will be destroyed in an instant by suspicious animals.
