Fish in culture

Through the ages, many cultures have featured fish in their legends and myths, from the "great fish" that swallowed Jonah the Prophet through to the half-human, half-fish mermaid around which books and movies have been centred (e.g., Splash).

Among the deities said to take the form of a fish are Ika-Roa of the Polynesians, Dagon of various ancient Semitic peoples, and Matsya of the Dravidas of India. The astrological symbol Pisces is based on a constellation of the same name, but there is also a second fish constellation in the night sky, Piscis Austrinus. Fish have been used figuratively in many different ways, for example the ichthys used by early Christians to identify themselves through to the fish as a symbol of fertility among Bengalis.[44] Fish have also featured prominently in art and literature, as in movies such as Finding Nemo and books such as The Old Man and the Sea. Large fish, particularly sharks, have frequently been the subject of horror movies and thrillers, most notably the novel Jaws, which spawned a series of films of the same name that in turn inspired similar films or parodies such as Shark Tale, Snakehead Terror, and Piranha.

"Fish" or "fishes", "school" or '"shoal"?

School of reef fish.

Though often used interchangeably, these pairs of words actually mean different things. Fish is used either as singular noun or to describe a group of specimens from a single species. Fishes describes a group containing more than one species.[45] Hence, as plurals, these words could be used thus:
My aquarium contains three different fishes: guppies, platies, and swordtails.
The North Atlantic stock of Gadus morhua is estimated to contain several million fish.

A random assemblage of fishes merely using some localised resource such as food or nesting sites is known simply as an aggregation. When fish come together in an interactive, social grouping, then they may be forming either a shoal or a school depending on the degree of organisation. A shoal is a loosely organised group where each fish swims and forages independently but is attracted to other members of the group and adjusts its behaviour, such as swimming speed, so that it remains close to the other members of the group. Schools of fish are much more tightly organised, synchronising their swimming so that all fish move at the same speed and in the same direction. Shoaling and schooling behaviour is believed to provide a variety of advantages (see article on swarming, the term used to cover such behaviours in animals).[46]
Cichlids congregating at lekking sites form an aggregation.
Many minnows and characins form shoals.
Classic examples of schooling fish are anchovies, herrings, and silversides.

It should be noted that while school and shoal have different meanings within biology, they are often treated as synonyms by non-specialists, with speakers of British English using "shoal" to describe any grouping of fish, while speakers of American English often using "school" just as loosely.