Mysterious whale feeding behaviour only documented by scientists in the 2010s has been described in ancient texts about sea creatures as early as two millennia ago, new research suggests.
In 2011, Bryde’s whales in the Gulf of Thailand were first observed at the surface of the water with their jaws open at right angles, waiting for fish to swim into their mouths. Scientists termed the unusual technique, then unknown to modern science, as “tread-water feeding”. Around the same time, similar behaviour was spotted in humpback whales off Canada’s Vancouver Island, which researchers called “trap-feeding”.
