At first glance, pilot whales and cheetahs seem unlikely to have much in common, but researchers have found at least one similarity: a tendency to sprint after prey, sacrificing energy for speed. This is the first demonstration of sprinting at depth in deep-diving marine mammals.
Natacha Aguilar Soto of La Laguna University in Tenerife, Canary Islands, and her colleagues tagged 23 short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus). They found that the whales, which chase squid to depths of up to about 1,000 metres, often sprint after their food, and can reach a maximum speed of 9 metres per second. The finding contradicts the expectation that deepdiving mammals swim at slower speeds to conserve oxygen.
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Marine ecology: Deep-sea cheetahs. Nature 453, 260 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/453260a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/453260a
