Posted on 11/26/2018 12:04:39 PM PST by ETL
The humpback whale has one of the biggest mouths on the planet—and the appetite to match. The bus-size mammals can eat up to 2500 kilograms of fish a day, and a new study reveals one way they snag these huge numbers: They make the fish come to them.
Humpbacks were already known to have a few hunting tricks up their sleeve. They blow bubbles in giant circles around herring to herd them into tightly grouped schools that can be swallowed whole. They also “power thrust” into dense balls of young herring, catching the fish by surprise.
Now, biologists have added a new skill to this repertoire. When seabirds like auklets or murres dive into the water to catch herring, whales off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island in Canada open their mouths half out of the water to make small ponds. Many of the fish mistake the artificial pools as refuges, and once enough have gathered in the whales’ mouths, the whales clamp their jaws shut on an easy snack. Sometimes they even usher a few stragglers in with their pectoral fins, the researchers report in Marine Mammal Science.
The scientists first observed this behavior in a humpback whale in 2011. Since then, they have observed more than 20 individuals doing it. The rapid spread of the technique, often among whales that spend a lot of time together, may indicate that the giant mammals are learning it from each other—possibly as a form of culture, the researchers say. And this, in turn, may help the whales learn new feeding strategies to adapt to future shifts in climate or food availability.
Thanks! That’s a much better gif than the 3 I provided. I went with the video that came with the article, creating 3 gifs from that.
Candygram!
Those whales almost got a taste of “long pig,” that day.
Blabbermouth!
LOL; the good old days of TV.
Uhmm Humpback whales are a type of baleen whales, which don’t eat fish per se. They eat mostly krill, which is a very small shrimp type animal. And on occasion, they do eat small fish. They have a baleen which is a type of netting within the mouth to strain the krill from the seawater.
Humpbacks feed primarily in summer and live off fat reserves during winter.[112] They feed only rarely and opportunistically in their wintering waters. The humpback is an energetic hunter, taking krill and small schooling fish such as juvenile Atlantic and Pacific salmon, herring, capelin and American sand lance, as well as Atlantic mackerel, pollock and haddock in the North Atlantic.[113][114][115] They have been documented opportunistically feeding near fish hatcheries in Southeast Alaska, feasting on salmon fry released from the hatcheries.[116] Krill and copepods are prey species in Australian and Antarctic waters.[117] Humpbacks hunt by direct attack or by stunning prey by hitting the water with pectoral fins or flukes
From Wikipedia
“Are those two side-by-side whales jumping out of the water simultaneously?”
Yes. And the two small blobs are human divers who now have an exciting tale to tell. :)
I've been on whale watch cruises. Small fish congregate in what the captain called "bait balls". The whales come up from underneath, open wide, and let the resulting vacuum suck up all the small fish. So yes, they eat krill, but they also eat all manner of small fish. They separate the fish (or krill) from the seawater with their baleen plates, and allow the seawater to leave their enormous mouths.
The humpbacks have all kinds of fun, until they hear the distant ping of orcas talking to each other.
So, the whales just open their mouths and the fish swim in?
Guess I’ll just go down to the river and open up my creel and let the fish jump in.
Great googli-ooglies!
It’s Joy Behar’s huge head rising up out of the hot tub!
>>Humpbacks were already known to have a few hunting tricks up their sleeve. They blow bubbles in giant circles around herring to herd them into tightly grouped schools that can be swallowed whole. They also “power thrust” into dense balls of young herring, catching the fish by surprise.
Aren’t environmentalists worried that whales may engage in over-fishing?
Have they tried going vegan?
Jehovah's Witness selling Watchtowers.
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