![]() Other times, a dolphin’s thwack may serve another purpose. Some Australian bottlenose populations perform a maneuver in which they smack octopuses off the water in an attempt to disarm the suction-footed cephalopods before devouring them. ( See dolphins punt fish out of water to stun and eat them. This is known as fish-kicking or fish-whacking. But this is actually a deadly serious hunting behavior.ĭepending on where they live in the world, the dolphins may be using their tail to stun fish and even skyrocket them into the air before moving in for the kill. When a dolphin slaps its fluke, or tail, on the surface of the water, it might seem like a toddler playing in a bathtub. ( Read how dolphins have bold and shy personalities, like us. “It’s a really interesting behavior, because there are only a few animals that do it,” says Mann. Strand feeding, or beaching, is another rare strategy known from only a handful of places, such as South Carolina and Shark Bay. In fact, Mann says that one of the most prominent “beacher” dolphins, a female named Jamaica, actually showed up with burn marks a couple of years ago, likely caused by prolonged exposure to the sun after getting stuck on shore. “It’s so dangerous,” says Janet Mann, a behavioral ecologist at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., who studies the behavior in Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins of Shark Bay, Australia. However, some dolphin species willingly take the risk by chasing fish up onto the beach-and then gulping them down before wriggling back into the wake. Strand feeding: the most dangerous gameįor a marine mammal, it’s perilous to get too close to the shore, where the animal could get stranded and die. ![]() “Either way, it’s really cool,” says Ramos-and it’s just one of the many clever ways dolphins have learned to survive. Instead, he believes separate dolphin populations living in similar habitats innovated the same strategy independently. While it’s technically possible that a mud-ring-feeding dolphin brought the behavior from Florida to the Caribbean, or vice versa, Ramos thinks that explanation unlikely. But a recent study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science proves that the behavior is more widespread than previously thought, and has been confirmed in Belize and Mexico, says study leader Eric Ramos, a marine biologist at the City University of New York. ![]() Until recently, mud-ring feeding was thought to be unique to just a few populations of bottlenose dolphins living in Florida. ![]()
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