Ant Ocean Answer for August 21: What is the purpose of marine mammals such as dolphins that move through groups?

Collaborative feeding.

Dolphins have a complex but organized group behavior, and they usually form a social structure consisting of a leader and followers, with the leader leading the group in activities such as collaborative feeding or finding mates. Dolphins' group behavior is often the result of multiple signals*** such as acoustic, visual, and tactile signals.

Dolphins tend to feed on small fish, shrimp, squid, crabs, and so on. Among them, killer whales also prey on other cetaceans and finfoots. Like other toothed whales, dolphins rely on echolocation to hunt and can even stun their prey with high sound intensity.

Life habits of dolphins

Dolphins are fast swimmers, usually traveling at a speed of 30-40km/hour, with some species of dolphin traveling at speeds of more than 55km/h for long periods of time, making them the long-distance swimmers of the ocean.

Some dolphins are highly social species, living in large groups (sometimes consisting of more than 100,000 individuals) and exhibiting many interesting collective behaviors.

The members of the group cooperate with each other in a variety of ways; one example is that dolphins in a cluster sometimes attack sharks, killing them by ramming them. Members also collaborate to rescue injured or sick individuals. The dolphins often follow the boats on the waves, sometimes taking acrobatic leaps into the air, a spectacular sight.