Feeding behaviors

Rheingantz, M., Fernando Saraiva de Menezes, J.Galliez, M. Antonio dose Santos

Fernandez, 2017. Biogeographic patterns in the feeding habits of the opportunist and the
semiaquatic Neotropical otter. Hydrobiologica. (792): 1-15.

Werth, A. 2000. A Kinematic Study of Suction Feeding and Associated Behavior in the Long-
Finned Pilot Whale Globicephala Melas. MArine Mammal Science (16): 299-314.

Tucker M.A., Ord, T.J., Rogers, T.L. 2016. Revisiting the cost of carnivory in mammals. Journal
of Evolutionary Biology (29): 2181-2190.

These reports discuss the different feeding habits and techniques of different mammals.
With pilot whales, they have a short rostra with reduced dentition, so hunting is more difficult
and have resorted to a form of suctioning their food (Werth 2000). These whales appear to be
healthy and have seen to use this technique as a more efficient way to feed when compared to
just hunting and taking down a fish. This is more efficient as the pilot whales snout is short and it
has reduced dentition, it makes eating and catching fish more difficult. With otters, it was more
concerned not how they ate but what they ate. The otters ate fish no matter the abundance of
other aquatic life, if there is availability of fish the otter will always choose the fish no matter the
location or altitude(Rheingantz et al 2017). This could be because their preference of fish is more
desired. Lastly the feeding behavior of overall carnivorous mammals were examined as well.
This article just examined how these animals began to feed on these particular prey in the
manner they do(Tucker et al. 2016). The evolution of feeding of carnivores. It was shown that
terrestrial carnivores have evolved to eat prey that is 45% or greater than their body size while
aquatic mammals fed upon prey that was 0.01% of their body size (Tucker et al. 2016). The
reason for this could be due to the ease in digestion relative to terrestrial predators. After they eat
they can rest or remain sedimentary, while aquatic predators are always moving and the smaller
prey is easier to feed and they can remain moving while in search for more which has helped
them evolve this foraging behavior. All these carnivores feed and move differently throughout
their environments but the behaviors are all matched in that they have evolved to want these prey
and to either chose to solely eat a specific type of prey no matter the abundant diversity of other
food sources, or the manner they choose to catch these prey.

This type of research is very helpful to the conservation and understanding of these
mammals. In order to coexist with these mammals we must know how they feed. Humans today
are always building and taking land for themselves, not thinking of the habitats and mammals
they are hurting. The understanding of how an animal feeds will help us better understand how to
conserve their habitat and livelihood while also to some extent be able to develop part of their
world as well. With carnivores the population dynamics are different than to omnivores or
herbivores. Carnivores generally have low population densities and slow growth rates (Tucker et
al. 2016). They rely heavily on their prey species which determines their distribution. If the prey
is low then reproduction becomes more difficult and population numbers will begin to drop. The
over development of their habitats for example the coyote in North Jersey, over development
caused prey species to be scare. This caused the coyotes habitat to spread into humans back
yards preying on their pets. Mammals, carnivores to be specific are a perfect area to study these
feeding and foraging behaviors, as well as the relationships between the predator and the prey.
The evolution of how these mammals hunt can be seen and we can determine how they evolved
morphologically, physiologically and adapted the behaviours necessary to survive (Tucker et al.
2016). In my opinion I believe this is a great area to study. The studies done however, were
more tricky than expected. When dealing with aquatic life such as whales it is hard to view how
they eat. Let alone be able to capture it on video to show. This poses a problem when trying to
release a study, it is less difficult to write what these whales do but to have the physical evidence
is what is needed to solidify that this is an efficient way of feeding. The otters however, were
much easier to study, the scat was collected to determine what food they ate. These studies
however, have implications as well. With otters, and other terrestrial mammals it is easier to
study their behaviors, this can cause an over abundance of experiments to be done on these
mammals. That is why it is in some cases, to use other peoples experiments to compile your data
may be easier. Or in other cases they have such a diversity in where they inhabit traveling to
these areas make it difficult to perform a solid experiment in a reasonable time frame. So using
others data can be helpful as well. The only drawbacks this causes is that it is not your own data,
it is difficult to see what went wrong and how the original scientists did to fix problems or areas
of concern. As well as the studies could have been done in different years from each other
causing the information to become outdated. Overall, the studies that I have analyzed were very
different from each other but all seemed to tie into each other. All these mammals had different
feeding behaviors but they all gave insight to how each mammal lived in their habitat. It is very
difficult to read articles of multiple completely different animals and see any similarities, as each
mammal in these articles all eat and hunt in completely different ways eating completely
different things, but have all gained all their tactics due to evolution. pilot whales had the
complications with reduced dentition and began suctioning to feed, terrestrial carnivores like the
coyote learned to adapt and in North Jersey have been shown to hunt in packs to hunt more
efficiently, and even otters have become opportunistic eaters to be able to adapt to any changes
in food availability. This area of study is fascinating as feeding can show more to a species than
just what food they eat. It can show a whole lineage of how they have evolved.

The research on the otters had many research gaps, they conducted 60 studies all at
different time zones. They did not disclose how many otters were in each study just the locations
and altitudes of each. An area that had issues is the studies all were at different points in time.
This could be tricky with our developing world. Everything is changing, developing and
evolving. The otters habitat one year can be completely changed the next due to humans
constantly developing over these mammals habitats. This can skew the results, damaging or
changing of the environment can change the aquatic life of the river and can change their normal
behaviors. For example if the otter lives in a river and they were studied, but the next year they
were studied a dam was built, it will greatly skew the results as dams can constrict the water flow
and can cause the otters to travel to other areas for food. Another gap could be due to the
experiments were done by other scientists. The other scientists could have had other intentions or
thoughts on this experiment and could have conducted it with a different end result in mind than
the scientists who are hypothesising now. Or the other experiments could have had their own
gaps or areas where the research did not go as planned and it because it is someone else's
experiments they can not physically ask them in most cases what went wrong and how the
scientists chose to fix the problem areas, they just have the report and data to go off of.
 The pilot whales had many gaps as well. They took samples of 3 males and 2 females.
This is a very low number and could pose some gaps as to if the entire poultaion eats using this
suction behavior or just the ones studied. Another gap is these whales are wild but held in
captivity. The whales were kept in tanks separate from each other and in good health. An issue
this posses is the whales are not meant for captivity, keeping them in these pools in a
rehabilitation center can cause them to change the way the act due the new and different
environment. Whales in this study did not continually eat or forage for food like they do in the
wild, this could be due to the new, smaller environment caused them some sort of stress. Lastly
the males were not seen to repeatedly do this behavior but the females were seen to use this
suction method of eating more often. None of which were caught on camera. Without data
showing the whales doing this suction action method continuously it can not be certain it is a
trait all pilot whales carry or use.

The study I believed to have the least amount of gaps was the mammalian carnivore
study. This studied 51 terrestrial and 56 marine mammals. This study analyzed the way the
carnivores preyed upon its meals as well as the type of meals they picked. A gap could be the
animals they chose, some mammals that are terrestrial rather have small prey than larger prey, as
well as marine mammals, not all of them prefer smaller prey. The mammals they chose generally
showed a pattern of consuming prey larger than their body size in terrestrial and opposite in
marine mammals. This did not take into account food availability. Some marine mammals could
prefer larger prey but during the experiment all that was available were smaller prey. This could
have skewed the results slightly. When looking into these types of feeding habits it is necessary
to look into the habitat and its food availability as this can alter the way the mammals feed and
behave as they are trying to adapt to the habitat they have.