A recent article in Nature shows that sailfish don’t just use their bills to slash at their prey but also to gently maneuver them away from a larger school to eat them.

Looking at Atlantic sailfish, the authors conclude that although sailfish are some of the fastest fish in the sea, they often prefer to slowly swim around a school of bait and gently nudge a fish away from the group in order to eat it, more herding dog than attack dog.

[embedplusvideo height=”360″ width=”480″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1fBwX0v” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/VISEHbpHkn4?fs=1&vq=hd720″ vars=”ytid=VISEHbpHkn4&width=640&height=480&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=1&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep7551″ /]

As the author writes:

“To the researchers’ surprise, however, they found that the sailfish could also use their bills to make a much more gentle kill. They could single out an individual fish, destabilize it by tapping it and remove it from the school, then corral it into their mouths. Small, tooth-like protrusions on the bill, called denticles, seem to help with this. The technique might be more effective and energy-efficient than slashing, and the sailfish use it about half of the time, the researchers found. In fact, the sailfish seem to be able to hunt for as long as necessary without tiring, taking turns until there are no more sardines left. ‘The poor sardines are just being chased for hours and hours,’ Wilson says. ‘There’s no reprieve.’”

Check out the whole article here: The Soft Power of Sailfish Bills

 

By Sean

---