Harbor porpoises are thought of as relatively non-social animals. They live in smaller groups, don't have as wide a repertoire (as far as we know) of vocalizations and live shorter lifespans than their highly social dolphin cousins. But there is mounting data that there is more to their sociality than we currently understand, and this study adds to that body of evidence. Using drones, researchers documented groups and individuals foraging in shallow water in Denmark. What they found went against most of what was thought about the sociality of harbor porpoises - they were cooperating. The majority of the time they were found hunting in groups, and in those groups individuals had specific roles, evidence that they are involved collaborative hunting, a more complex type of cooperation. This strategy is normally found in social animals, so perhaps there is more to the harbor porpoise's sociality than we know. Listen to learn more about this interesting study and the implications of the work on what we know about harbor porpoise behavior.

Paper freely available: https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjz-2020-0289

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