Scientists Filmed Dolphins Using a Rare Shell Trick to Catch Fish
Researchers say only three dolphins were seen using shells, and the behavior may have spread through social learning after independent invention.
9 Articles
9 Articles
Scientists Filmed Dolphins Using a Rare Shell Trick to Catch Fish
Dolphins are the kind of smart that’s a little unsettling for an animal. The more we observe their behavior, the freakier they become. As researchers report in Marine Mammal Science, dolphins off Queensland, Australia, have been caught on camera using a rarely documented hunting technique called “shelling.” It’s a simple but effective strategy that lulls […] The post Scientists Filmed Dolphins Using a Rare Shell Trick to Catch Fish appeared firs…
In the waters of Queensland, on the east coast of Australia, a group of researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast has recorded how indo-peaceful mular dolphins use seashells to catch fish. This behavior, known as "shelling", demonstrates the ability of these animals to use tools that they have at their disposal and, ... Continue reading "Scientists discover dolphins hunting with tools: thus learn from their mothers an amazing techniq…
Dolphins on opposite sides of Australia, thousands of kilometres apart, appear to have independently learned to chase fish into empty seashells and tip the trapped meal into their mouths — two populations, one remarkably similar invention.
Almost 4,000 kilometres separate Shark Bay on Australia’s west coast from Hervey Bay on its east. Bottlenose dolphins in both places have nevertheless arrived at the same unusual way to catch a fish: use a large empty sea-snail shell as a trap, carry it to the surface and drain the prey toward the mouth. The behaviour is known as shelling. Researchers have followed it in Western Australia’s Shark Bay for years. Now a new open-access study in Mar…
A female dolphin pushed a fish into an empty shell, then lifted her trap out of the water in front of a drone, images from the University of Sunshine Coast, published in Marine Mammal Science on August 12, 2026. This manoeuvre had never been documented in only one Australian bay, in Shark Bay, on the other side of the continent. Dolphins hunting with shellfish would therefore be more widespread along the coast than biologists assumed. The shelli…
Dolphin mothers teach calves to fish using shells - Australian Geographic
Footage captured in Queensland's Great Sandy Marine Park shows a bottlenose dolphin calf learning to 'shell' by watching its mother. The post Dolphin mothers teach calves to fish using shells appeared first on Australian Geographic.
Dolphins off Western Australia carry sea sponges on their beaks while foraging along the ocean floor — a rare tool-use behaviour passed mainly from mothers to daughters, making it one of the few animal cultures shaped so strongly by gender
Somewhere in the deep channels of Shark Bay, a dolphin is cruising along the seabed with a sponge jammed over her nose like a novelty clown accessory. She is working. She learned the job from her mother, and if she has a daughter, that daughter will almost certainly learn it too. Sponging, as the researchers call it, is the best documented case of tool use in any wild whale or dolphin. It is also one of the very few animal traditions anywhere th…
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