Wednesday, September 19, 2012

A Day of Feeding and Play

Everyone’s Creating Mud Plumes
Today each group encountered spent time feeding using mud plumes (see previous blog entry on details about this behavior). Our first group included Madbob, who we previously mentioned regarding the lesions on her skin. The good news was that Madbob was one of the adults actively engaged in this feeding behavior. And she also led the group to locations where they then used this behavior. We take this as a positive sign regarding her health.

Madbob lunging through a U shaped mud plume she created over the shallow sea grass beds

What happened to you?
The individual in the photos below has been sighted before, but not long term in the Key West population. We do not know the cause of it's bent fin and back scars. In addition, there are white spots along the area where an obvious injury once
was. Maybe shark attack at a young age? Maybe boat strike? We are hesitant to say birth defect due to the scarring on the back near the fin. The animal does not yet appear to be full grown, and today was hanging out with other juveniles that were in a group we followed. We did note that it did not participate in much of the active behaviors between these juveniles, but continued to stay near them and move with them while they played as their mothers fed (again mud plume feeding).




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