Rapid color changes allow striped marlin to coordinate, taking it in turns to attack prey, a new study has found.
The study published in the journal Current Biology documented this phenomenon for the first time. A video of the finding shows just how these animals coordinate an attack.
These fish are one of the fastest animals on the planet. They are also a top predator. They can be found globally and reach lengths of up to 2.9 meters. Scientists already knew that they take turns attacking prey, but this discovery sheds never-before-seen insight into the species.
Alicia Burns of Humboldt University in Berlin told Newsweek that when they first noticed the phenomenon, she was "excited but skeptical."
"It's long been known that striped marlin could change the brightness and intensity of their stripes," Burns said. "However, most observations in the past have come from fishermen, so it was assumed that marlin color change was simply a result of becoming excited or stressed—almost like blushing in humans. That we could show a link between color change and group hunting behavior opens up a whole new avenue of research and many more questions."
The scientists used drones to capture footage of the fish hunting. They spotted the fascinating behavior while assessing the footage.
The most notable thing was that the stripes on each marlin got brighter when a fish went to attack its prey. But when the individual fish moved away from the prey, the stripes got dim again.
"We've been working on this system for several years now and mostly filming underwater, so although we could see variation in stripe intensity, we could never really see the hunting sequence as a whole," Burns said. "And although we had taken drone footage in the past, it was really a Goldilocks moment of perfectly flat seas and no wind that allowed us to really see the color change properly."
The scientists theorized that the color change could indicate to the other marlins that it is about to go in for an attack. Thus, it is a unique way to communicate with others in their group.
Another theory is that the color changes could even be a technique for confusing prey, the study said.
The new findings suggest that marlins are much more complex than scientists initially thought.
The next step is for researchers to find out more about how marlins use this color-changing ability, as they may use it in contexts other than hunting. It is also possible that other fish use this technique, but this has yet to be discovered.
"We know so little of marlin behavior in the open ocean. Where do they go when not hunting together? How and when do they reproduce? Is color change used in other contexts like mating or aggression? There's much more to learn," Burns said.
"Striped marlin aren't the only social predator that we know can change color—sailfish and mahi mahi similarly hunt in groups and display remarkable color change as well—but little to nothing is known of why this has evolved and in what context. It may be far more widespread in predators than we realize. Technological advances such as high res video and drones are allowing us unprecedented insights into open ocean species."
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Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
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