Underwater acrobatics by the world's largest predator: 360° rolling manoeuvres by lunge-feeding blue whales

Abstract

The extreme body size of blue whales requires a high energy intake and therefore demands efficient foraging strategies. As an obligate lunge feeder on aggregations of small zooplankton, blue whales engulf a large volume of prey-laden water in a single, rapid gulp. The efficiency of this feeding mechanism is strongly dependent on the amount of prey that can be captured during each lunge, yet food resources tend to be patchily distributed in both space and time. Here, we measured the threedimensional kinematics and foraging behaviour of blue whales feeding on krill, using suction-cup attached multi-sensor tags. Our analyses revealed 3608 rolling lunge-feeding manoeuvres that reorient the body and position the lower jaws so that a krill patch can be engulfed with the whale's body inverted. We also recorded these rolling behaviours when whales were in a searching mode in between lunges, suggesting that this behaviour also enables the whale to visually process the prey field and maximize foraging efficiency by surveying for the densest prey aggregations. These results reveal the complex manoeuvrability that is required for large rorqual whales to exploit prey patches and highlight the need to fully understand the three-dimensional interactions between predator and prey in the natural environment.

Supervised accelerometry analysis can identify prey capture by penguins at sea

“…Wiggles are undulations in the bottom phase of dives thought to be related to hunting strategy, and have been shown to be a proxy for prey encounter in other species of penguins (Simeone and Wilson, 2003;Bost et al, 2007) and whales (Goldbogen et al, 2013). We defined a wiggle as a change in depth during bottom time occurring at >0.5 m s −1 (see Fig.…”

“…Accelerometry can improve our understanding of the way that animals move through threedimensional space and interact with the environment to acquire resources at unprecedentedly fine scales (e.g. Goldbogen et al, 2013). However, there are relatively few examples of studies in which analytical methods have been both (a) validated and (b) applied to wild animals to give insight into ecological processes (but see Nathan et al, 2012;Watanabe and Takahashi, 2013;Watanabe et al, 2014).…”

Hydrodynamic properties of fin whale flippers predict maximum rolling performance

“…Rorqual whales can perform 360 deg barrel rolls, but more often use 90 deg lateral rolls or 180 deg inverted rolls for feeding and maneuvering (Kot and Borda, 2014). It is unknown why rorquals roll during feeding, but given that these large whales depend on high prey density (Goldbogen et al, 2015), rolling is thought to increase the efficiency of foraging by facilitating prey capture (Goldbogen et al, 2013;Potvin et al, 2010).…”

“…Large aquatic animals provide a unique opportunity to study locomotor performance and maneuverability because they can be instrumented, allowing in situ body kinematics to be remotely measured (Goldbogen et al, 2013;Miller, 2004;Watanabe et al, 2015). The performance of this diverse assemblage of organisms is highly influenced by the anatomical geometry of the control surfaces used to generate lift during swimming (Fish, 2002(Fish, , 2004Fish and Lauder, 2006).…”

“…Rolls form the basis for more complex maneuvers, such as banked turns (Schilstra and Hateren, 1999), and are used as building blocks for intricate maneuvering trajectories. Rolling performance affects many functions including reorientation of the visual field (Goldbogen et al, 2013), prey capture and feeding (Fish, 2002;Fish et al, 2007), cleaning (Limbaugh, 1961), social interactions (McBride and Kritzler, 1951) and dislodging parasites Weihs et al, 2007). Baleen whales in the family Balaenopteridae, or rorquals, frequently roll during feeding events (Goldbogen et al, 2006;Kot and Borda, 2014).…”