7/5/14
Chloe Cavanaugh
We blasted out east this morning with the intention of finding Buttercup, one of the spongers that we want to follow. While Mission: Buttercup did not come to fruition today, we did end up spending the afternoon on our coolest follow to date.
We came across one of the classic east gangs, socializing as usual. Almost as soon as we began a follow on one of the group's known spongers, the dolphin left the group and picked up a massive Pseudoceratina sp. sponge, which looked like a head of golden broccoli. The dolphin sponged for the next couple hours, occasionally surfacing with a fish. Meanwhile, all of the other dolphins from before continued to socialize some distance away; all except one, that is. This one non-sponger hung out with our sponger for the full two hours of sponge time. The non-sponger spent the two hours resting, often snagging at the surface, presumably watching the sponger in action. We watched with growing incredulity as the sponger surfaced in the exact direction the non-sponger was pointing, and even began using the non-sponger as a predictor of which direction the sponger would surface from next. The dolphin was surprisingly and laughably accurate, only misleading us a small fraction of the time.
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| Photo credit: Madison Miketa |
The channel we were in was about nine to eleven meters deep; normally the bottom would be beyond sight at this depth, but the water was calm and clear enough that we could see straight to the bottom. At one point when the sponger dropped its sponge, the water clarity, combined with the non-sponger's indication, enabled us to see the sponger swim down to the channel floor right below our boat and retrieve the dropped sponge! Definitely an excuse to spend some more observation hours out east.
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