Latest news with #SharkBay
SBS Australia
2 days ago
- Science
- SBS Australia
Tidal Moon leveraging traditional knowledge to bring banc Australia's first ever export the sea cucumber
Tidal Moon draws on traditional knowledge to harvest sea cucumbers one by one, the marine animal will soon be dried and processed at a brand-new export facility in the West Australian town of then they're sent to a Singaporean partner for export across South East Asia Gathaagudu is home to the planet's largest reserve of seagrass both a food source for marine life and a carbon storage powerhouse. Tidal Moon is leading one of the world's largest seagrass restoration projects. While scouring the seafloor for sea cucumbers, the divers also replant seagrass reserves. "One of the key things that we're trying to do is keep the carbon captured in the sea floor. So without seagrass restoration, you have these carbon bombs that go off and there's about 40 million tons of CO2 that are at risk in Shark Bay" Jennifer Verduin, a marine scientist at Perth's Murdoch University, agrees that the relationship might be 'mutually beneficial,' saying sea cucumbers are 'the worms of the ocean.'
CBC
5 days ago
- Science
- CBC
For these dolphins, using sponges to dig up fish is a family tradition
In a marine-protected area off the coast of Australia, there are bottleneck dolphins swimming around with sponges on their noses. But unlike orcas wearing salmon on their heads or chimps putting grass in their ears and anuses, "sponging" isn't a fashion statement or a cultural trend. Rather, it's a sophisticated foraging technique passed down through generations to drudge up tasty snacks from the seafloor. "It's likely that sponging arose from a single dolphin having this creative event where they had a sponge on their face and they realized it was really effective for scaring up fish," Ellen Jacobs, a marine biologist at Denmark's University of Aarhus, told As it Happens host Nil Kӧksal. "Then maybe this dolphin had an offspring who saw this was how mom was foraging, so that's how she's going to forage, too. And then it kind of snowballs." Jacobs is the lead author of a new study, published in Royal Society Open Science this week, that examines the pros and cons of sponging to figure out why the technique is limited to a small population of genetically related dolphins in the marine-protected environment of Shark Bay. Oddly exclusive Here's how sponging works: A dolphin puts a sea sponge on its nose like a glove, then cruises along the sea floor using it rustle up fish hiding among the rocks and shells in the sediment. "Then the dolphin drops the sponge, grabs the fish, and then picks up the sponge and keeps going," Jacobs said. First reported in the 1984, the behaviour has continued through the decades. But only five per cent of the dolphin population studied by the researchers in Shark Bay do it, or roughly 30 dolphins in total. And it's strictly a family affair, with calves learning it from their mothers. "All of the dolphins that we see ... sponging are all related matrilineally," Jacobs said. The researchers were curious why sponging had not taken off more widely among dolphins. It appears to only spread vertically, from adults to juveniles, and never laterally, from peer to peer or group to group. Sponging, it turns out, comes with some trade-offs. First of all, it's time-consuming. Dolphins who sponge spend more time looking for food than dolphins who use other hunting and foraging techniques, Jacobs said. What's more, it's a complicated skill that takes years to master. "Sometimes you'll see juvenile spongers who get frustrated, throw their sponge away and pick up a new one," Jacobs said. "But as they age, they get more efficient with their sponge use." Why is it so hard to learn? The researchers discovered the sponges distort the echolocation that dolphins use to navigate their environments. Jacobs used an underwater microphone to confirm the dolphins still use echolocation clicks to guide them while sponging. She then modelled the extent of the sound wave distortion from the sponges. "It's similar to if you were wearing a pair of glasses with the wrong prescription," she said. "You're going to be kind of uncomfortable and everything is going to look a little bit weird, but you can kind of make it through your day, just maybe with a headache." Mauricio Cantor, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study, likened it to "hunting when you're blindfolded." "You've got to be very good, very well-trained to pull it off," Cantor said. And not everyone has what it takes to wield the sponge, or the patience to perfect it. "It takes them many years to learn this special hunting skill [and] not everybody sticks with it," said Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, who was not involved in the study. Why bother? But those who do master the art of sponging reap the benefits of their hard work. "They can get a lot of fish all year round because the fish that they're primarily hunting for are not migratory," Jacobs said. " And there's not a lot of dolphins that do it so they don't have a lot of competition for those fish." Earlier research also suggested the fish in the sediment may even be more nutritious than other kinds of fish. Sponging isn't the only example of tool use documented among bottleneck dolphins. In 2020, researchers published a study documenting dolphins teaching each other how to use sea shells to scoop fish into their mouths, a technique they dubbed "shelling" or "conching." And just like the spongers, the shellers reside in Shark Bay, a marine protected area off Western Australia. "Sponging is such a complex interaction between a lot of different parts of the ecosystem, and that's only possible because it is a very pristine ecosystem," Jacobs said. What's more, she says dolphins in Shark Bay don't suffer stresses related to pollution and overfishing like many other dolphins around the world. "That really gives them the opportunity to be dolphins the way that dolphins should be without anthropogenic impacts," she said. "It's a really great opportunity for us to understand: What is a dolphin supposed to be?"
BBC News
5 days ago
- Science
- BBC News
Dolphins use sponges to help hunt fish scientists say
Some dolphins in western Australia have developed an unusual technique to help them find fish on the have spotted them biting sponges and "wearing" them on their snouts - a bit like a clown's nose!This allows the dolphins to protect their noses while stirring up sand on the rocky seabed, helping them to uncover fish hiding say this new discovery could help us better understand use of tools by animals, as well as their behaviour in the wild. What did scientists discover about the dolphins? The new research published in the Royal Society Open Science journal featured an international team of spotted that some bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, in western Australia, pick up sponges from the seafloor and use them as tools to help them hunt have called this behaviour "sponging" and say that its a bit like wearing a glove - helping dolphins protect their sensitive skin whilst digging through rough sand and sharp rocks on the ocean say that it's a difficult hunting method and they've only spotted a small number of dolphins using the Jacobs, from Denmark's Aarhus University, who was involved with the study, explained: "Sponging is a very unique foraging behaviour. It's only dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia, that have been observed doing it. "It's only about 5% of the population do this technique. So it's maybe like 30 dolphins right now. So it's quite rare."Scientists think the art of sponge hunting is taught and passed down by mother dolphins to their offspring. Dolphin calves usually spend around 3 or 4 years with their mothers, observing and learning important life Jacobs added that dolphins can spend a lot of their time sponging in the said: "Once they've scared up a fish they will drop the sponge off of the front of the face and they will go after the fish, grab it, pick up their sponge again, and keep going and they'll do it for hours at a time."
Times
6 days ago
- Science
- Times
Dolphins hunt wearing fake noses — but only the clever ones
In the unusually clear waters of Shark Bay off Western Australia, some bottlenose dolphins have a unique way of hunting. One small group have learnt to put sponges on their beaks, to scour the seabed and flush out fish. Researchers have tracked the strange technique of 'sponging' for about 35 years, watching the animals as they draw the fish out, drop the sponges that protected their beaks from the rocks and devour their prey. Now, though, scientists are beginning to understand why this behaviour, which is seen in no dolphins elsewhere in the world, is confined to only about 5 per cent of dolphin population even within Shark bay. Ellen Jacobs, of Aarhus University in Denmark, and her colleagues wanted to find out how the sponges affected the dolphins' echolocation which is famously their strongest sense. The team collected sponges from Shark Bay and used a CT scanner to put them into a computer model and simulate how dolphins' echolocation clicks travelled through them. They found that sponging is a game of trade-offs. Although the sponges help to flush fish from their hiding places, they also distort the clicks. Worse still, every time a dolphin drops a sponge, when they put it back on its orientation may mean a different distortion. The researchers likened the effect to putting on glasses with the wrong prescription. Sponging, in short, is mentally taxing. 'It could help explain why not everybody sponges,' Jacobs said. 'Sponging is kind of a weird thing to do. The sponging dolphins — they are a little socially isolated, they hang out with each other more than they do with other individuals. And they spend a lot more time foraging than non-spongers. So it's not an efficient technique in terms of time usage. So why would you do it?' • What's that Flipper? Scientists listen in on incredulous whistling dolphins Sponging has not spread sideways across the dolphin population of Shark Bay, but is passed down by mothers. 'We think that this distortion could be playing into why you only become a sponger if your mother was also a sponger,' said Jacobs, whose study was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Dolphins are not born knowing the method, so they learn it from their mothers. Researchers are divided on whether calves learn simply by watching or whether mothers actively teach the technique. Either way, though, sponging takes a long time to master. Jacobs said that dolphins could hunt their own fish at four years old, but may still be improving at sponging well into their twenties.
The Independent
7 days ago
- Science
- The Independent
Dolphins learn to wear sponges ‘like a clown nose' to hunt fish
Dolphins in Australia have developed a unique and ingenious hunting technique, involving the use of sponges to flush out fish from the seafloor. These bottlenose dolphins don a sponge on their beak, akin to a clone nose, allowing them to safely shovel through rocky seabed channels. This method stirs up barred sandperch, making them an easy meal. However, new research published in the journal Royal Society Open Science reveals this inherited behaviour is more challenging than it appears. The sponge, while protective, interferes with the dolphins' sophisticated echolocation system, their primary means of navigation and sensing through sound. 'It has a muffling effect in the way that a mask might,' said co-author Ellen Rose Jacobs, a marine biologist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. 'Everything looks a little bit weird, but you can still learn how to compensate." Jacobs used an underwater microphone to confirm that the 'sponging' dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, were still using echolocation clicks to guide them. Then she modelled the extent of the sound wave distortion from the sponges. For those wild dolphins that have mastered foraging with nose sponges, scientists say it's a very efficient way to catch fish. The wild marine sponges vary from the size of a softball to a cantaloupe. Sponge hunting is 'like hunting when you're blindfolded — you've got to be very good, very well-trained to pull it off," said Mauricio Cantor, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study. That difficulty may explain why it's rare — with only about 5% of the dolphin population studied by the researchers in Shark Bay doing it. That's about 30 dolphins total, said Jacobs. 'It takes them many years to learn this special hunting skill — not everybody sticks with it,' said marine ecologist Boris Worm at Dalhousie University in Canada, who was not involved in the study. Dolphin calves usually spend around three or four years with their mothers, observing and learning crucial life skills. The delicate art of sponge hunting is 'only ever passed down from mother to offspring,' said co-author and Georgetown marine biologist Janet Mann. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
