haven porpoises , Phocoena phocoena , live biography in the fast lane . Compared to other toothed whales , they get on earlier , reproduce more frequently , and have a short lifespan . They also necessitate a lot of vigour just to survive . grant to new findings published inCurrent Biologythis week , these marine mammals are always hunt and eating , sidereal day and night . They hunt up to 550 Pisces the Fishes an 60 minutes with a 90 percent success rate .
Being the smallest cetacean living in the cold temperate waters of the Northern Hemisphere , harbour porpoise drop off a lot of heat and can only store a limited amount of energy . That means they in all probability have to eat a lot throughout the yr to back their metabolic requisite .
To study harbour porpoise foraging behavior , a squad result by Danuta Wisniewska of Aarhus University attached high - resolution data loggers to five groundless porpoise using sucking cups ( pictured below ) . These ticket recorded both movement and sound . " This is the first time we have been capable to measure simultaneously how a marine mammal hunting and how often it is successful , " Wisniewska enunciate in astatement . " The antic here was to pink into the echo sounding sounds that porpoises utilise to smell their environment . porpoise make hundred of clicks a second as they go about prey , and the echoes fare back give us incredible detail about what the prey are doing . "
Turns out , the porpoises James Henry Leigh Hunt small quarry between 3 and 10 centimeters ( 1.2 to 4 column inch ) long closely continuously . They ’ll attempt to catch as many as 550 Pisces the Fishes an minute . The investigator depict these foraging rate of about 10 fish a minute as " radical high . " And with a success rate of over 90 percent , harbour porpoise are one of the major planet ’s most success hunting watch . you’re able to watch them hunthereandhere .
But they hold up on a tongue - border . Requiring so much vigor just to survive means they must use up all the time or else they ’ll hunger . While they do target fish that are smaller than those of sake to commercial fisheries , " trust on such small fair game makes porpoises especially vulnerable to disturbances , because there is no room for recompense , " Wisniewska added . Even a moderate stage of disruption in the busy shallow piss that they share with human race could impact the porpoises badly .
Monika Dyndo_Fjord & Belt
