Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences<\/a> that\u00a0revealed humpbacks fed more often when California sea lions were also foraging with them.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe whales seemed to feed faster and had shorter breaks between lunges when sea lions were around, according to the study.\u00a0\u201cAcross 1,808 lunge-feeding events, whales foraging with sea lions exhibited a 23% higher feeding rate and a 16% shorter inter-lunge interval,\u201d write the authors in the paper.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whether or not sea lions were there didn\u2019t change the whales\u2019 speed, acceleration or manoeuvring capabilities. This suggests their presence doesn\u2019t affect how much energy the whales use for each lunge.<\/p>\n
And the humpbacks foraged for the same length of time whether sea lions were present or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Footage shows humpback whales hunting alongside California sea lions. Credit: Videos taken with NMFS permit #26602<\/p>\n
The researchers suggest the whales gained more energy when their foraging buddies were hunting nearby, probably because the sea lions help to bundle the fish into more concentrated bait balls. This allows the whales to find and capture food more quickly.<\/p>\n
The scientists also think that both the whales and the sea lions may benefit from foraging together. The humpbacks have an advantage because the anchovies are crammed together in denser groups while the sea lions can pick off fish that are stunned or knocked away from the safety of the group by the whale\u2019s attack. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe observed sea lions foraging on individual, slow-moving anchovies separated from the school by humpback whale lunges,\u201d write the authors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scientists think that both the whales and the sea lions may benefit from foraging together. Credit: Videos taken with NMFS permit #26602<\/p>\n
Their different modes of hunting may also reduce competition between each other. Humpback whales try to eat as many fish as possible in one giant gulp while sea lions go after one fish at a time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this association were more competitive, we would expect to see increased manoeuvring expenditure of humpback whales when sea lions are present, as they work to avoid or outmanoeuvre the other species,\u201d write the authors.<\/p>\n
By feeding together, both species enjoy more success. But are they choosing to work together or have they just both been tempted in by the same prey?<\/p>\n
The experts aren\u2019t sure, writing: \u201cwhether whales actively track sea lion activity or both predators simply converge on anchovy schools remains uncertain.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Video and image credit: videos taken under NMFS permit #26602<\/p>\n
More wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swimming downwards, the whale pelts head-first towards a large group of sea lions. After it opens its mouth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-500810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}