‘Ferocious’ Leopard Seals Caught on Digicam in an Sudden Show of Sharing

Some individuals don’t love sharing their meals – all of us have a good friend who will get cranky while you steal a chip from their plate. For wild animals, this is smart, as a result of any meals shared is power misplaced that might in any other case have been used to pursue extra meals.

So it was an enormous shock to find wild leopard seals feeding alongside each other whereas consuming king penguins at South Georgia, a distant island within the southern Atlantic Ocean. On prime of this, they might have even been cooperating with one another to eat these monumental seabirds.

We report this fascinating commentary in a brand new examine revealed within the journal Polar Biology.

Cannot we simply all get alongside?

Leopard seals have a ferocious status as one of many prime predators within the Antarctic ecosystem. They’re infamously the “principal enemy of the penguin”, as immortalised within the movie Completely satisfied Ft.

However once they eat penguins, leopard seals are usually extremely territorial, scaring off rivals by lunging at them with a fearsome set of enamel. Animal-mounted cameras have even revealed that leopard seals ambush one another to steal captured prey.

However that is not what was seen when the movie crew engaged on the Netflix documentary sequence Our Planet visited South Georgia. As an alternative, they have been astonished to seek out wild leopard seals floating alongside each other eating collectively on a king penguin carcass, taking it in turns to tear off items of meals.

(Silverback Movies)

Too pricey to battle

Given how aggressive leopard seals usually are round meals, why have been these seals behaving so out of character?

Take into account this: for those who have been at an all-you-can-eat buffet and a stranger sat at your desk and commenced consuming your meals, would you chase them away or allow them to share with you, realizing you could possibly simply get extra afterwards?

When meals could be very plentiful, it might be cheaper to share than to battle. Penguin colonies provide a near-constant provide of potential prey, attracting scores of predators. On this case, as much as 36 leopard seals have been seen close to the colony on the identical time.

So if a seal paused feeding to scare or battle off a rival, there’s a good probability a 3rd seal would sneak in and steal the meals. On this state of affairs it makes extra sense to give attention to consuming as a lot as potential, as quick as potential – tolerating some meals theft if crucial in order to keep away from losing power on combating that might threat dropping the prey altogether.

The seals did not get alongside completely on a regular basis. We noticed some aggression, however maybe that is to be anticipated if they’re simply tolerating one another out of necessity.

(Dion Poncet)

Do leopard seals cooperate to eat massive prey?

One other clarification for these surprising observations is that leopard seals could be cooperating to make it simpler to eat such massive prey.

Not like northern seals, leopard seals do not have clawed paws to assist them maintain prey. As an alternative, they’ve paddle-like flippers with tiny claws, forcing them to vigorously thrash the prey backward and forward of their enamel to tear it into items sufficiently small to swallow. This energy-intensive consuming fashion is even tougher when the prey is massive – like grownup king penguins.

(James Robbins)

Alternatively, if two animals maintain the prey between them, one can act as an anchor whereas the opposite tears off a piece of meat. This protects numerous power that might in any other case be wasted shaking the prey round.

This kind of cooperative meals processing is definitely fairly widespread amongst aquatic prime predators, reminiscent of killer whales and crocodiles, that may’t simply maintain onto meals.

Two leopard seals eating on a king penguin. (Kai Hagberg/Silverback Movies.)

The weird case of the sharing seal

This final risk made us rethink the interpretation of a well-known encounter between a wild leopard seal and Nationwide Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen.

On coming into the water, Nicklen was repeatedly approached by a seal that seemed to be attempting to feed him a penguin in an act of surprising altruism. However maybe this was not a free reward, however a proposal to cooperate.

The newest discovery is a good instance of how new expertise will help researchers make close-hand observations of untamed animals.

By utilizing a digicam drone, the film-makers might fly above the animals with out disturbing them, permitting them to look at behaviours which have to date gone unnoticed.

The remoteness of Antarctic ecosystems could make it laborious to attach with the wildlife there, however these advances in expertise are serving to to offer new home windows into this icy world.

David Hocking, Postdoctoral fellow, Monash College; Alistair Evans, Affiliate Professor, Monash College, and James Robbins, Visiting researcher, Plymouth College.

This text is republished from The Dialog underneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.