In a dramatic drone footage, shot in the Gulf of Thailand, an Eden whale reveals its unique feeding strategy. A never seen before behavior that baffled the marine experts and make us all thinking of how intelligent these massive creatures are!
The video was initially shared by wildlife filmmaker Bertie Gregory, who called it an “extraordinary behavior.” The short footage is part of the BBC documentary ‘A Perfect Planet’ narrated by Sir David Attenborough. The tremendous scene captures a massive Eden whale in its feeding frenzy. The marine mammal is treading water and while keeping her huge mouth open, it creates a flow that sends fishes in a deadly trap.
“By treading water and keeping the corners of their mouth below the surface, a flow is created pulling the fish into the whale’s mouth,” Gregory captioned the video. “In the panic, some of the fish also seem to jump out the water and into the whale’s mouth!”
Watch the incredible footage here:
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Eden’s whales only live in the Indo-Pacific waters and they can reach up to 38 feet in length. Even spectacular, it turns out these creatures have actually developed this behavior as a result of the pollution. With the ocean pollution heavily increasing over the last years, the level of oxygen in the deep waters is getting lower, so the fishes live on the surface.
Eden’s whale 🐋 trap feeding in Gulf of #Thailand 🇹🇭#ASEANfauna
📸 BBC – A Perfect Planet – Oceans pic.twitter.com/ZBZJOVZzRW
— Nan Nourn នូនណាន 🇺🇸 🇰🇭 🇻🇳 (@seriouswildlife) January 13, 2021
“This extraordinary behaviour is thought to have developed because pollution has made the Gulf of Thailand a hypoxic environment,” Gregory wrote. “Sewage outflows from the land have caused all the oxygen in the water to be used up, except at the surface. This means the whale’s fish prey can only live in this surface layer.”