Mice of the sea: Watch elephant seals use whiskers to find food

This study is absolutely brilliant,” says Robyn Grant, a sensory biologist at Manchester Metropolitan University, whose research on sea lions in captivity has come to similar conclusions. But the new work is the first to show how seals use their whiskers in the wild while fishing, Grant says. The new study included five northern elephant seals ( Mirounga angustirostris ) at Año Nuevo State Park, a coastal park south of San Francisco. Researchers outfitted them with headgear including cameras about the size of flash drives and other small sensors that detect light, depth, and the open ing and closing of the mouth. The team recorded data in February 2015 and 2018, just after the breeding season, when the animals left the shore for a 2-month ocean migration in search of food. When the seals returned to shore, to shed fur and give birth, the scientists collected the devices and analyzed the footage. ©Adachi et al., 2022 At the start of each dive, still in shallow waters, the seals kept their whiskers retracted. But as they approached dark waters deeper than 200 meters, they extended their whiskers forward. At even greater depths, where their favorite meals of squids and lantern fish reside, the seals constantly moved their whiskers back and forth like a dish antenna scanning for a signal, the team reports today in the...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news