Dolphins catapulting jellyfish? Outer Banks photos show the mysterious behavior

Dolphins are thought of as playful creatures, and a pod recently spotted near the Outer Banks repeatedly bouncing a jellyfish into the air like a volleyball certainly seems to fit that description.

As much as it may look like a game to the observer, the aquatic mammals might not be launching the jellyfish purely for the fun of it, dolphin expert Keith Rittmaster said.

Rittmaster, the NC Maritime Museum’s Natural Science Curator and director of the Cape Lookout Studies Program, captured photos of the dolphins in action near Shackleford Banks in late November.

Rittmaster has been snapping pictures of dolphins since 1985, in order to identify and track them, and learn more about their migration patterns, birth rates, diseases and more.

Though he’s out on the ocean for several days almost every month, the dolphin behavior he recently witnessed is a rare sight even for him, Rittmaster told McClatchy News.

“I don’t see the behavior of tossing the jellyfish often, maybe once every 2-3 years,” he said. “One dolphin repeatedly tosses the same jellyfish, usually by pushing it on the top of their rostrum.”

The dolphins were “mouthing” the jellyfish, as well, something he’d never seen before.

As to why the dolphins were flinging the jelly around in the first place, Rittmaster isn’t sure, but suggested there may be a very practical reason.

“Interestingly, there are often communities of small fish around and within the mantles of the jellyfish,” Rittmaster said, adding that he recently found a spider crab hitching a ride on a jellyfish. “So I’m wondering if tossing the jellyfish might be an attempt at getting to those associated fish.”

In other words, the dolphins may be trying to shake food loose from the jellyfish by batting it around, like a pinata full of seafood.

It’s not by luck Rittmaster was in the right place at the right time. He had noticed an “unusually large” number of jellyfish in the water off Shackleford Banks and hoped if he hung around them, the dolphins would come.

His hunch was rewarded when a pod of around 12 dolphins arrived and started tossing jellyfish.

“It was exciting and fun to watch, and I was trying to understand the behavior better,” Rittmaster said.

Only two to four dolphins at a time would harass the jellyfish.

“They don’t seem to share, nor do they seem to damage the jellyfish,” he said.

Similar dolphin behavior has been observed in the waters off Denmark, and near Wales.

Researchers have also witnessed dolphins using pufferfish to get high, by aggravating the toxic fish and then ingesting small doses of the toxins it uses to defend itself, Smithsonian Magazine reported.

This story was originally published December 7, 2020 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Dolphins catapulting jellyfish? Outer Banks photos show the mysterious behavior."