Visual abstract: white sharks scavenging on whales in False Bay

The R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation recently posted the video above to their Vimeo channel. The video is intended as a supplemental “visual abstract” for the research article “White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) Scavenging on Whales and Its Potential Role in Further Shaping the Ecology of an Apex Predator.” The study is based on observations of great white sharks feeding on the carcasses of whales in South Africa’s False Bay and the impact of these events on the surrounding marine ecosystems.

Some key behavioral observations during scavenging at the sites of the whale carcasses:

• a tendency for the white sharks to feed on the fluke first, followed by blubber-rich content
• an absence of eye rolling (to protect the eye) during feeding on the carcass
• a broader variance in individual white shark sizes than is typically seen in the area
• a lack of competitive aggression between white sharks
• a size-dominance based hierarchy (aka “pecking order”)

You can learn more about the findings of this research by checking out the full journal article, which was written by Chris Fallows, Austin J. Gallagher, and Neil Hammerschlag.