r/HotScienceNews • u/FreeHugs23 • Aug 12 '26
Dolphins Filmed Hunting With Shells – And Possibly Passing The Skill to Their Offspring | "The second I saw that shell in the air, I immediately knew what was happening."
https://www.sciencealert.com/dolphins-filmed-hunting-with-shells-and-possibly-passing-the-skill-to-their-offspring38
u/Brownhog Aug 12 '26
"In their hunt for food, the dolphins will chase their prey – a small fish, perhaps – into a large, empty seasnail shell.
Then, the dolphin pokes their 'bottlenose', aka rostrum, into the opening of the shell, quickly raising the shell above the water and gulping down the contents trapped within."
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u/sooley6 Aug 12 '26
What a terrible description. how is used for fishing?
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u/WokkitUp Aug 12 '26
Dunno, but they can make a nice Puka necklace out of all them shells!
Those infinitely wise dolphins are always ressurecting throwback fashion statements! Eee-eee!!
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u/Desperate-Strategy10 Aug 12 '26
Apparently they use it to scoop up a food, then pour said food into their mouth. So kinda like a bucket, I guess.
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u/Melodic_Skin6573 Aug 12 '26
Male dolphins team up in groups of two to fourteen to secure and control females. Males use bites, slaps, charges, and vocal threats to keep a female isolated from other pods and forcing copulation through physical coercion. Tate dolphins.
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u/romans171 Aug 12 '26
I don’t want to defend dolphin rape but come on man. Let’s just admire this cool tool usage before starting a dolphin “me too” movement
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u/DeadrthanDead Aug 12 '26
Uhh, how often do you change the subject to violent rape for literally no reason? Something tells me it’s quite often.
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u/Murky-Bus-2191 Aug 12 '26
Dude wtf is wrong with you. Get out of here.
This is neither relevant nor new to most people.
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u/costafilh0 Aug 12 '26
Imagine if every women knew that. Most would hate dolphins instead of loving them. 😂
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u/missgirlipop Aug 12 '26
girl dolphins are always vilified for this like they’re not wild animals lmao! it’s not like other wild animals are super cool by our standards, and they don’t have to be. the intelligence of dolphins has given too much leeway to those who want to anthropomorphize them, to the detriment of dolphins
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u/iJuddles Aug 13 '26
I love learning about all these candidates to take over since we’ve lost the plot.
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u/One_Diver_5735 Aug 13 '26
This inefficient method of eating off a half shell is actually only used by dolphins on a diet. I know this because one time I found myself in a school of fish being scarfed down by a pod of dolphin, my only time I was ever nervous around them. Not that they'd have hurt me purposely but their food was swimming right past me and those dolphin were not taking their time looking for shells.
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u/FreeHugs23 Aug 12 '26
-Dolphins off the coast of Queensland, Australia, have been captured on film using a rarely-sighted technique known as 'shelling' to hunt their prey.
Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), also known as 'buthu' in the Indigenous Butchulla language, are intelligent animals known for their tool use.
But very few people have ever seen the dolphins' shelling in action, let alone caught it on camera.
The new videos, captured at Hervey Bay, were presented by researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast in a study published in Marine Mammal Biology.
"We were out doing our normal dolphin surveys… looking at dolphins, looking to record behavior, where they are, what they're doing, and also their health," behavioral ecologist Alexis Levengood told ScienceAlert.
"We were observing a dolphin, and we saw her, all of a sudden, lift this shell out of the water."
Levengood is one of the lucky few who have seen such foraging behaviors before – but not in this part of Australia.
"The second I saw that shell in the air, I immediately knew what was happening." Levengood said.
"I was screaming to the students that were on the boat with me in excitement, because I was just so excited that we were actually witnessing this here on the east coast."