A small group of bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, has developed an unusual hunting method: using marine sponges as tools to catch fish. But new research shows that mastering this skill is far from easy.
The dolphins wear the sponge on their beaks like a protective mask, allowing them to dig through the seabed without injury and flush out fish like the elusive barred sandperch. This technique, passed down from mother to calf, disrupts the dolphin’s echolocation abilities, making it harder to locate prey.
“It has a muffling effect, in the way that a mask might,” explained Ellen Rose Jacobs, a marine biologist at Aarhus University and co-author of the study, published Tuesday in Royal Society Open Science. Despite this, dolphins adapt and continue using echolocation clicks to guide their foraging.
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Only about 5% of the local dolphin population—roughly 30 individuals—have mastered this behavior, likely because of the years of practice required.
Sponge hunting, researchers say, is a rare cultural behavior passed exclusively from mother to offspring. Marine biologist Janet Mann of Georgetown University called it a delicate, inherited skill that not every dolphin learns to master.
Source: Agency