Whales lunge left when going for shallow food PA

Ambidextrous behaviour by “right-handed” blue whales has surprised scientists studying the huge creatures’ feeding habits.

Like many other animals, blue whales display laterality, or “handedness” – generally a bias towards the right. But a study using video cameras attached to the backs of whales has shown how they switch laterality when feeding.

Over a period of six years, the team attached suction “tags” fitted with video cameras, hydrophones and motion sensors to the backs of 63 blue whales off the coast of southern California. The tags were designed to detach after several hours and float to the surface, so they could be recovered and their data downloaded.


Blue whales are famous for their dramatic “lunge feeding” acrobatics close to the ocean surface. As they launch themselves upwards into swarms of the tiny crustaceans, called krill, on which they feed, the whales execute 360 degree barrel rolls. And according to the video evidence, they almost always roll to the left.

This is in marked contrast to the way they normally feed at greater depths, when they execute 90-degree right-handed side rolls.

Eyes on the prize

Rolling to the left while lunge feeding allows the blue whale’s dominant right eye to target smaller patches of krill more effectively, suggests US lead researcher Ari Friedlaender, at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute.

“We were completely surprised by these findings, but when considering the means by which the whales attack smaller prey patches, the behaviour really seems to be effective, efficient, and in line with the mechanisms that drive their routine foraging behaviours,” he says. It was the first known example of an animal altering handedness to adjust to the context of a performed task.

Journal reference: Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.10.023