Conching fad sweeping the dolphin world
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Though fads are old hat to us hominids, it appears our mammalian cousins of the sea are catching on to the fever of fads with a new fishing technique called conching.
“Conching” is a method by which Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins are trapping small fish in conch shells, bringing the shells to the surface, and then shaking them with their rostrums to clear out the water and dump the fish into their mouths.
Scientists appear to have lucked out when they observed the behavior in one small group in 2007 and 2009, because those instances lend credence to the theory that the technique is rapidly spreading through the dolphin population now that it’s been seen six or seven times in only a few months across Western Australia’s Shark Bay. The next step is to catch a glimpse of the action going on below the surface to see whether the dolphins are using the shells to scoop fish or lay a trap for their prey.
Full story at PopSci.
Photo credit: Murdoch University