Dolphins Innovate: Using Sponges to Hunt in Australia

Dolphins Use Sponges for Unconventional Hunting in Australia

Washington, Jul 16 (AP) – In Australia, a peculiar group of dolphins has developed an innovative hunting technique. These dolphins arm themselves with a sponge, placed over their beak like a clown's nose, to effectively rouse fish from the seafloor.

With the sponge protecting them from sharp underwater rocks, these dolphins skillfully glide through the sandy bed, stirring up sediment to expose barred sandperch—an easy catch for their meal.

This unique behavior, passed through generations, turns out to be more complex than it initially appears, as described in recent findings published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Covering their beak with a sponge hinders the dolphins' sophisticated echolocation abilities, where they emit sounds and interpret the returning echoes to navigate. “It has a muffling effect in the way a mask might,” noted Ellen Rose Jacobs, a marine biologist at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. “Everything looks a little bit weird, but you can still learn how to compensate.” Using underwater microphones, Jacobs confirmed that dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, were utilizing echolocation while "sponging." Her research included modeling how the sponge distorted sound waves.

For those dolphins that have mastered this technique, the method proves to be an efficient way of securing a meal. The sizes of these oceanic sponges vary, resembling objects between a softball and a cantaloupe.

Marine biologist Mauricio Cantor from Oregon State University, who wasn’t involved in the study, likened sponge hunting to “hunting when you're blindfolded” — requiring exceptional skill and training to succeed.

The relative rarity of this behavior is notable, as only around 5 percent of the monitored dolphin population in Shark Bay engages in it. This figure translates to roughly 30 dolphins, Jacobs mentioned.

“It takes them many years to learn this special hunting skill—not everybody sticks with it,” explained Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie University, Canada, who was not involved with the research.

Dolphin calves typically spend about three to four years under their mothers' guidance, acquiring essential survival techniques.

The art of sponge hunting is “exclusively passed from mother to offspring,” according to co-author and marine biologist Janet Mann from Georgetown. (AP)

(Only the headline of this report may have been reworked by Editorji; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)