Whales' Foraging Strategies Revealed by New Technology

Marine biologists are beginning to understand the varied diving and foraging strategies of filter-feeding whales by analyzing data from multisensor tags attached to the animals with suction cups. Such tags, in combination with other techniques such as echolocation, are providing a wealth of fine detail about how the world's largest creatures find and trap their prey.
Recent studies on the behavior of baleen whales, which filter small fish or invertebrate animals from seawater, are described in the February issue of BioScience. Jeremy A. Goldbogen of the Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Washington, and his colleagues point out that tags can report not only the depth but also the acceleration of the animal carrying them, which reveals information on its pitch and rolling motion. Together with special software, this can allow foraging dives to be visualized in three dimensions, along with the timing. Studying whale behavior is logistically challenging, as it may be necessary to coordinate the actions of several research vessels and large research teams. Yet despite the difficulties, patterns are becoming clear.
Right whales and bowhead whales have a very different feeding strategy from rorquals—the group that includes the biggest animal on earth, the blue whale. Right and bowhead whales filter-feed by swimming relatively slowly through prey patches, a mode called continuous ram feeding. This keeps their energy expenditure low and makes possible dives of 10 minutes ...

Source: BioScience Press Releases - January 23, 2013 Category: Biology Authors: Timothy M. Beardsley Editor in Chief, BioScience American Insitute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) 1900 Campus Commons Drive, Suite 200 Reston, VA 20191 703-674-2500 x326 tbeardsley at aibs.org www.aibs.org Source Type: news