You’re not you when you’re hungry. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Dolphins are just the best, aren’t they? There aren’t many things better than bobbing around waiting for a wave and watching a few of them doing their thing. They’re incredibly smart animals — some of the smartest in the world — and they use all sorts of interesting hunting techniques. None, however, more interesting than the method that BBC Earth captured in Western Australia.
Dolphins have been known to use tools. They can make a sort of net from mud to round up prey. They routinely work together to form bait balls, which makes hunting a whole lot easier.
In the footage you see here, dolphins’ attempts to feed on fish are thwarted by the fish simply heading to the shallows. After the dolphins try a variety of other methods, like tail slapping, they finally resort to more aggressive measures: hydroplaning.
“The fish are tantalizingly close,” David Attenborough narrates. “But they’re still out of reach, so the dolphins try another technique. Vigorously pumping their tails, they work up some speed. And then, they hydroplane. Their momentum carries them right through the shallowest waters and onto the fish.”
But it’s a roll of the dice because if they miscalculate, they could end up stranding themselves. That’s an awful predicament for a dolphin, but nature doesn’t care much for predicaments. The dolphins need food, and they will do anything to get it. Luckily, as the old saying goes, and Attenborough attests, “Fortune favors the brave.”
