Clustering is implemented using a new technique inspired by the social behavior of the horses. Horses are social herd animals and they like to live in groups. In the herd of horses there is a pecking order to avoid aggression and also to encourage group cohesion. This pecking order may be linear or nonlinear. Horses do not necessarily follow this order. Therefore, there may not be a group leader unlike other animals which move in herds. Based on the above behavior, a clustering and routing behavior for WSN nodes is proposed. The nodes form clusters but do not select any cluster head. The paths from source to destination are selected using a fitness function that takes into consideration the distance, energy and herd quality between two nodes continuously till the best path is obtained. On comparison with existing techniques, this method is found to give better results in terms of energy consumption and lifetim

Horse Optimization, Pecking order, Cluster heads, Distance, Energy, Herd Quality.