Dolphins are renowned for their intelligence and friendliness, but one aspect we don’t often consider with these famously social creatures is how they eat. Like most of marine life of their size, a dolphin’s diet mostly consists of fish.
But chasing after fish that are hastily rushing and swimming away isn’t the most relaxed way to catch a meal. Being the smart mammals they are, it isn’t long before these bottlenose dolphins find a unique and ingenious solution that makes the fish dive straight into their waiting mouths.
The dolphins have realized that fish don’t usually fare so well out of water or on dry surfaces. When one of the dolphins locates a school a fish and begins to swim around it, using its tail to roughly beat at the ground. A mushroom cloud of mud and dust begins to rise in the water as the dolphin spirals in, effectively trapping the fish in a mud net.
As the net draws in, the fish run out of ways to swim – and the only way left is up, right into the eager dolphins’ mouths. This commendable workaround for a task that usually takes a lot of energy and effort benefits a whole group of dolphins, and it’s just more proof of the species’ amazing intelligence!
