Essay On Bubble Feeding

Feeding techniques and Social Learning: Bubble net feeding has been identified as tool-using behavior and a possible sign of culture. The process of bubble-net feeding is like a game of football, where members specialize in an specific factor of the hunting process. From the evolutionary perspective, humpback whales could have develop cultural transmission in order to communicate about the location of the their prey. Their prey, schools of fish, are spread in aggregated manners throughout the ocean. Since the ocean is so big, humpback whales must have had to develop ways of transmitting knowledge about the location of their prey. Communication about the location of their prey could have developed through cultural transmission.

Bubble-feeding, is performed through in a specialized manner, where each member of the group has a specific task. Bubble-feeding techniques are interesting because how it is performed depends heavily on who the lead is ( Kelsey 2008: 57-58).Leaders of bubble-feeding groups can be either male or female.Additionally, humpback whales often have specific partners for bubble feeding. These bubble feeding paris often work together and seem to develop more efficient and successful techniques. same group seem to develop more efficient and successful techniques (Kelsey 2008:59). The formation of individual or group bubble net feeding pairings for entire summers, or even throughout different decades, demonstrates humpbacks whales ' ability to form reciprocal bonds outside of kinship (Kelsey 2008: 59). Yet, the pairings only last through the summer, once the winter comes, humpback whales mostly return to their usual feeding ground. The patterns of partnership for bubble feeding might be due to the fact that during the summer since there are predictable and abundant schools of fish (Kelsey 2008:60). Feeding success has been link to the familiarity between the pairing. This might show that humpback whales are capable of learning and adapting to the responses of other humpback whales. Additionally, humpback whales ability to form alliances outside kinship, and outside members of their feeding grounds point to the complexity of their social structures and highlight their