Surface feeding behavior of humpback whales in the Magellan Strait

Abstract

Surface feeding behavior of 37 identified humpback whales in the Magellan Strait are reported with the aim of describing feeding behavior and investigating whether differences in prey type determine the feeding strategy in this area. A total of three lunging and one bubbling behaviors are reported, of which two ('single straight-line bubble curtain' and 'sub-surface skimming') are novel behaviors for this species and each feeding behavior tended to be consistent in regards to the prey species available at a given time. However, our data set did not contain a sufficient sample size to fully interpret this association with the available prey species.