Navy Dolphins Strapped With GoPros Offer A Deep Dive Into Their Daily Lives

A team of US Navy dolphins was unleashed back into the wild with some GoPros attached to them in order to better study these mammals.

While we may think we know a lot about dolphins, six months’ worth of gathered footage reveals otherwise about these social creatures. The study was compiled and released in the journal PLOS ONE. 

These particular dolphins aren’t just any regular bottlenose dolphins; they work for the navy. They were trained to hunt down undersea mines and even guard America’s undersea nuclear bunkers.

According to the Navy marine mammal website, the dolphins are trained in open waters and can leave whenever they please. While some have run away over the years, almost all seem willing to assist in the army instead.

However, they were recently given a vacation out into the open waters, and researchers couldn’t pass up the chance to study them in their natural habitat.

Unleashed along the coast of the San Diego Bay, the dolphins were caught hunting down almost 200 fish in their time at sea, a welcome change from their usual diet of frozen fish at the navy base.

The fish included seabass, halibut, smelt, pipefish, and even sea snakes. The footage also almost constantly caught them making clicking noises at intervals of 20 to 50 milliseconds. However, as their hunt began and they approached prey, their clicking diminished to a discreet buzz.

What was interesting was their hunting techniques. The GoPros were able to track the dolphins’ eye movement, showing that none of them ever took their eyes off their food. The creatures even swam belly-up under their prey to track them, a tactic that wild dolphins often use.

The dolphins mainly suck in their prey from the sides of their mouths and use their strong throat muscles to digest them.

The study was conducted to gain better insight into the animals and better understand their health, lifestyle, anatomy, and sonar for future generations to study.

[via Interesting Engineering and Science Alert, cover image via Sam Ridgway, Dianna Samuelson Dibble, Mark Baird et al/PLOS ONE]