Scientists strapped GoPro cameras to the bodies of six dolphins trained by the U.S. Navy, and recorded them hunting for food and consuming their prey in grisly detail. According to the study, there was a purpose behind this potential invasion of dolphin privacy; namely, to learn more about how the mammals hunted and ate.
Scientists have previously made two competing assumptions about how dolphins ate. They engaged in either ram feeding, in which the predators swim faster than their prey and clasp the fish in their jaws as they overtake them; or suction feeding, in which predators move their tongues and expand their throats to create negative pressure and slurp up prey. The authors of the study, which was published in the journal PLoS ONE, set out to determine which method dolphins actually used.
“[S]ound and video together have never been used before to observe the behavior of dolphins and of the live fish they capture and consume,” they wrote in the study.
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And, of course, there’s the fact that these dolphins were trained by the U.S. Navy. The Marine Mammal Program as it’s called today has existed in some form since before 1960, when Navy researchers attempted to improve torpedo design by studying dolphins. Since then, they have spent millions of dollars annually to foster and train bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions. According to the program’s website, these animals “have excellent low light vision and underwater directional hearing that allow them to detect and track undersea targets, even in dark or murky waters”—and unlike human divers, they don’t suffer from the bends.
Read more: The Daily Beast
