Trap feeding and tread-water feeding are whale hunting strategies first recorded in the 2000s in two whale species at opposite sides of the globe. In both behaviors, whales sit motionless at the surface with their mouths open. Fish are attracted into the whale’s mouth and are trapped when the jaw is closed. Flinders University maritime archaeologist John McCarthy and his colleagues identified striking parallels with the behavior of a sea creature named hafgufa in Old Norse sources. The hafgufa tradition can be traced back to the aspidochelone, a type of whale frequently described in medieval bestiaries, first appearing in the Physiologus, a 2nd century CE Alexandrian manuscript.
Whales are known lunge at their prey when feeding, but recently whales have been spotted at the surface of the water with their jaws open at right angles, waiting for shoals of fish to swim into their mouths.
This strategy seems to work for the whales because the fish think they have found a place to shelter from predators, not realising they are swimming into danger.
It’s not known why this strategy has only recently been identified, but marine scientists speculate that it’s a result of changing environmental conditions — or that whales are being more closely monitored than ever before by drones and other modern technologies.
“I first noticed intriguing parallels between marine biology and historical literature while reading about Norse sea monsters,” Dr. McCarthy said.
“It struck me that the Norse description of the hafgufa was very similar to the behaviour shown in videos of trap feeding whales, but I thought it was just an interesting coincidence at first.”
“Once I started looking into it in detail and discussing it with colleagues who specialise in medieval literature, we realised that the oldest versions of these myths do not describe sea monsters at all, but are explicit in describing a type of whale.”
“That’s when we started to get really interested….
Read the full article here