September 02, 2005
HEEERRRREE BIRDY BIRDY BIRDY... *CHOMP*

What do you get when you give a clever sea mammal nothing much to do for most of the day? A seagull's worst nightmare:

An enterprising young killer whale at Marineland has figured out how to use fish as bait to catch seagulls — and shared his strategy with his fellow whales.
...
First, the young whale spit regurgitated fish onto the surface of the water, then sank below the water and waited.

If a hungry gull landed on the water, the whale would surge up to the surface, sometimes catching a free meal of his own.

Probably tastes like chicken.

Posted by scott at September 02, 2005 08:13 AM

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It may sound funny, but this is a momentous event. It is the first observed occurence of an animal not only developing a new idea and sharing it, but also suffering a short term loss (the fish it was eating) to reap a longer-term reward. Not to mention the fact that it has learned to use the psychology of sea gulls - a completely unrelated animal - to trap them.

They aren't scavenging any more, or even hunting. They are TRAPPING, and doing so intentionally, unlike other predators that may accidentally corner their prey, or be trained to, but never learn to do it repeatedly by themselves. That kind of behavioral development has long been thought to be the exclusive domain of homo sapiens, and a precursor to agriculture.

Will it develop into a full-fledged civilization of killer whales? Only time will tell.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian on September 2, 2005 01:54 PM

Read the article that is linked. This is called cultural learning and is not the first time this behavior has been observed.

Posted by: Pat on September 2, 2005 02:26 PM

I know about cultural learning. That wasn't what impressed me about the behavior, as I stated above. Lots of animals pass on learned behaviors, there isn't anything special about that. But there is a big difference between "push this lever and a food pellet comes out" and "don't eat the food pellet, it can be used to trap other animals so we can eat them."

Posted by: Tatterdemalian on September 3, 2005 12:33 AM

I told a friend that if the whales can figure out how to do that utilizing lottery tickets, they'll eat like kings!

Posted by: Rob on September 3, 2005 03:53 AM
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