WaterNotes

There are many hunting techniques recorded for various dolphin species around the world. As opportunistic and inventive hunters, they’ve found ways to corral and catch many different types of prey using strategies that often involve barriers, physical prowess, and outright deception.  In Australia one group uses sponges as tools; the females carry sponges over their [...]

By drawing some deep parallels and contrasts between humans and animals Professor Robert Sapolsky makes some fascinating connections in this talk filmed at Stanford University and highlighted by TED’s Best of the Web feature earlier this week.  I particularly loved the mention of stickleback behavior (of course) but the final thoughts on culture - as [...]

A report released in Polar Biology had an interesting incident involving an overeager king penguin to relate.  Apparently a researcher happened upon a particular king that had decided he was ready to raise some offspring.   Since it was too early for king penguin breeding season, the adult went after his neighbors’ chick which belonged to a pair of skua [...]

Bottlenose dolphin have previously gone sponging in order to hunt down prey items, but no one realized they also had a recipe for success when it comes to dining on cuttlefish. Behold: Preparing the Perfect Cuttlefish Meal: Complex Prey Handling by Dolphins.
Observations of a single female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus) [...]

I’ve always loved the life history quirks of the mangrove rivulus. Unfortunately its a little too quirky for the likes of my regular students who are certainly too young or too silly to hear the scoop. And why am I intrigued by them? Well, most of the little fish - found in the [...]