Sunday, December 10, 2006

Fox hunts

So, it appears that, for the first time, two separate species have been observed hunting together (where neither species is human). New Scientist reports here, that groupers and moray eels in the Red Sea have been observed helping each other to hunt smaller prey. As you can see in the videos in the article, the grouper loses a prey-fish under a piece of coral so swims over to the nearest moray eel and performs a weird dance shaking it's dorsal fin. The eel responds by following the grouper to the coral (which the grouper identifies by dancing over) and going in for the kill, thus flushing out other prey for the grouper waiting above. Apparently, the main problem with inter-special teamwork is distributing the spoils, but these fish each swallow their prey whole thus negating the problem. Pretty cool, huh?

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