Supplementary material from "Solitary humpback whales manufacture bubble-nets as tools to increase prey intake " ...
Several animal species use tools for foraging; however, very few manufacture and/or modify those tools. Humpback whales, which manufacture bubble-net tools while foraging, are among these rare species. Using animal-borne tag and unoccupied aerial system technologies, we examine bubble-nets manufactu...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
The Royal Society
2024
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7408346 https://rs.figshare.com/collections/Supplementary_material_from_Solitary_humpback_whales_manufacture_bubble-nets_as_tools_to_increase_prey_intake_/7408346 |
| Summary: | Several animal species use tools for foraging; however, very few manufacture and/or modify those tools. Humpback whales, which manufacture bubble-net tools while foraging, are among these rare species. Using animal-borne tag and unoccupied aerial system technologies, we examine bubble-nets manufactured by solitary humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Southeast Alaska while feeding on krill. We demonstrate that nets consist of internally-tangential rings and suggest that whales actively control the number of rings in a net, net size and depth, and the horizontal spacing between neighboring bubbles. We argue that whales regulate these net structural elements to increase per-lunge prey intake by, on average, seven-fold. We measured breath rate and swimming and lunge kinematics to show that the resulting increase in prey density does not increase energetic expenditure. Our results provide novel insight into how bubble-net tools manufactured by solitary foraging humpback whales act to increase foraging ... |
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