Sentences with phrase «sand lance»

In the recent studies, researchers showed that this behavior happens for extensive periods of time at or near the seafloor, that it occurs in the presence of concentrations of sand lance (a preferred prey fish), and that the behavior is accompanied by the expansion of the animal's ventral (throat) pleats.

TrackPlot, a custom software tool developed by Ware, translated the tags» data into a three - dimensional ribbon that illustrated the whales» paths as they repeatedly dove to the bottom of the ocean, rolled onto their sides, tilted their heads down, and feasted on sand lance, a favorite food that is abundant there.

By going after the tasty sand lance, it appears that humpbacks may be putting themselves in danger of getting tangled up in the gear humans are using to catch their own tasty meals.

At night, sand lance burrow into the seabed or form horizontal schools just above the seafloor.

The whales don't perform bottom side - rolls in another area of the Gulf of Maine where the dominant humpback prey is herring, further suggesting that the late - night acrobatics are for catching sand lance.

Between the energetic intertidal habitats and the deeper and stable offshore habitats on the shelf, this nearshore area hosts diverse communities of invertebrates, important forage species, such as sand lance, crabs, flatfishes, and sharks, as well as foraging seabirds and marine mammals.

Seabirds, like this Atlantic puffin with a mouthful of sand lances, have fewer young when forage fish are scarce.

Humpbacks survive on a diet of tiny fish such as herring and sand lance, which they eat by opening up their mouths wide, taking in a huge amount of fish - laced water — two - thirds or more of their body mass — and then squirting the water back out through their mouths, filtering out the food with bristly baleen plates inside their mouths.

The video also showed what the whales might be after — sand lance.

In addition, Crittercam footage indicates that sand lance can form dense mats along the seabed during the day.

Sand lance, also known as sand eels, tend to burrow into the sandy sediments at night or form nighttime horizontal schools close to the seafloor.

Atlantic saury, pearlsides, sand lances — you've probably never tasted any of these fish (or heard of them).

So the whales turned to dining on another small fish: the sand lance.

sand lance A small, schooling fish that is important food for many species, including whales and salmon.

In British Columbia they feed on herring, salmon, sand lance, pilchards, hake, cephalopods, rock fish and dogfish (small sharks).