Scientists Filmed Dolphins Using a Rare Shell Trick to Catch Fish

Scientists Filmed Dolphins Using a Rare Shell Trick to Catch Fish

Dolphins are the kind of smart that’s a little unsettling for an animal. The more we observe their behavior, the freakier they become. As researchers report in Marine Mammal Science, dolphins off Queensland, Australia, have been caught on camera using a rarely documented hunting technique called “shelling.” It’s a simple but effective strategy that lulls […] The post Scientists Filmed Dolphins Using a Rare Shell Trick to Catch Fish appeared firs…

Dolphins on opposite sides of Australia, thousands of kilometres apart, appear to have independently learned to chase fish into empty seashells and tip the trapped meal into their mouths — two populations, one remarkably similar invention.

Almost 4,000 kilometres separate Shark Bay on Australia’s west coast from Hervey Bay on its east. Bottlenose dolphins in both places have nevertheless arrived at the same unusual way to catch a fish: use a large empty sea-snail shell as a trap, carry it to the surface and drain the prey toward the mouth. The behaviour is known as shelling. Researchers have followed it in Western Australia’s Shark Bay for years. Now a new open-access study in Mar…

Dolphin mothers teach calves to fish using shells - Australian Geographic

Footage captured in Queensland's Great Sandy Marine Park shows a bottlenose dolphin calf learning to 'shell' by watching its mother. The post Dolphin mothers teach calves to fish using shells appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Dolphins off Western Australia carry sea sponges on their beaks while foraging along the ocean floor — a rare tool-use behaviour passed mainly from mothers to daughters, making it one of the few animal cultures shaped so strongly by gender

Somewhere in the deep channels of Shark Bay, a dolphin is cruising along the seabed with a sponge jammed over her nose like a novelty clown accessory. She is working. She learned the job from her mother, and if she has a daughter, that daughter will almost certainly learn it too. Sponging, as the researchers call it, is the best documented case of tool use in any wild whale or dolphin. It is also one of the very few animal traditions anywhere th…

Australian Researchers Film Dolphins Using Seashells to Trap Fish, Revealing Rare Tool-Use Behavior

Australian scientists have documented dolphins using seashells to catch fish, a rare tool-using behaviour observed independently in two separate populations, highlighting dolphin intelligence and cultural transmission.