Vinegar eels can synchronize swim

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Trapped within a bead of water, thousands of tiny worms wiggle in hypnotic synchrony as they stream around the globule’s rim. And at the center of this undulating gyre some of the creatures congregate into a writhing mass, like the pupil of a demonic eye.

These squiggling creatures are Turbatrix aceti, a species of nematode commonly known as vinegar eels. Individual vinegar eels are often found swimming freely in jars of raw vinegar or in fish tanks. But when troupes of them assemble, vinegar eels showcase a unique juggling act of behaviors; they can wiggle in synch as they move together in swarms, researchers report January 10 in Soft Matter.

This captivating ability is exceedingly rare in nature. Birds and fish can move collectively, while some bacteria can coordinate the waving of whiplike appendages (SN: 7/31/14; SN: 5/28/19; SN: 7/13/15). Vinegar eels, however, are capable of more. “This is a combination of two different kinds of synchronization,” says Anton Peshkov, a physicist at the University of Rochester in New York. “Motion and oscillation.”

Peshkov and his colleagues first heard rumors of vinegar eels’ weird motions while studying the group movements of brine shrimp, another common aquarium dweller. Intrigued, they packed thousands of T. aceti into droplets to observe under a microscope.

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