{"id":854727,"date":"2026-08-14T07:32:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T07:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854727\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T07:32:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T07:32:21","slug":"dolphins-filmed-using-shells-to-hunt-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854727\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins filmed using shells to hunt fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunshine Coast researchers have captured footage of dolphins using seashells to catch fish off Queensland\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n

A University of the Sunshine Coast team recorded two sightings of bottlenose dolphins engaging in the tool use behaviour, called shelling, at the Great Sandy Marine Park off Hervey Bay between July and October in 2025.<\/p>\n

Animal behaviouralist and marine mammal expert Dr Alexis Levengood said the only previous published evidence of the rare and fleeting behaviour had been among a species of dolphin at Shark Bay in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were on a\u00a0research\u00a0boat\u00a0off Hervey Bay when we spotted\u00a0a dolphin raising\u00a0something large out of the water. I started screaming\u00a0because I know what shelling\u00a0looks like,\u201d\u00a0Dr Levengood, the study\u2019s lead author, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0hunting\u00a0behaviour where dolphins\u00a0chase\u00a0fish\u00a0into large empty\u00a0shells, bring the shell to the surface and\u00a0then\u00a0shake it to\u00a0drain\u00a0the fish into their mouths.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u00a0were able to\u00a0record\u00a0footage\u00a0and\u00a0take\u00a0photographs\u00a0of\u00a0dolphins\u00a0shelling\u00a0in the Great Sandy Marine Park, which is\u00a0the\u00a0first published record of\u00a0it\u00a0on the east coast of Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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During one sighting, an adult female dolphin and calf were observed shelling, which indicated the calf might have learned the skill from watching its mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u00a0saw\u00a0the\u00a0mother\u00a0surface\u00a0with\u00a0a\u00a0shell,\u00a0the\u00a0fish\u00a0inside\u00a0escaped\u00a0and\u00a0the dolphin dropped\u00a0the shell to\u00a0chase\u00a0the fish.\u00a0Then, minutes afterwards, the\u00a0dolphin\u00a0calf\u00a0picked up the shell\u00a0and held it the same way as its mother,\u201d\u00a0she\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur footage provides the first potential evidence of maternal social transmission: a process by which offspring learn behaviour by observing the actions of its mother. It challenges the belief that dolphins learn this tool use from their peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese\u00a0findings highlight how smart, clever and innovative dolphins are.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said further research was needed to understand the nuances of shelling and to provide clarity on transmission pathways and links to ecology, cognition, culture and evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned shelling had been photographed during boat trips run by Blue Dolphin Marine Tours during 2013 and 2019, indicating shelling has occurred in this population for longer than expected, but went unnoticed due to limited research in the region,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur observations in Queensland show that dolphins on opposites sides of Australia have learned to use tools in the exact same way, independent of one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot we don\u2019t know and many questions we will hopefully ask and answer with time. But better understanding shelling, and other tool use in non-human animals, will continue to teach us more about ourselves and how and why we evolved the way we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study has been published in a paper in the journal of Marine Mammal Science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunshine Coast researchers have captured footage of dolphins using seashells to catch fish off Queensland\u2019s coast. A University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-854727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}