© Neil Hammerschlag
University of Miami's Neil Hammerschlag and collaborators from the University of British Columbia and Texas State University collected data on 340 natural predatory attacks by white sharks on Cape fur seals in False Bay, South Africa. They found that spatial patterns of shark predation were not random and that smaller sharks had more dispersed prey search patterns and lower kill success rates than larger sharks. (
University of Miami's Neil Hammerschlag and collaborators from the University of British Columbia and Texas State University collected data on 340 natural predatory attacks by white sharks on Cape fur seals in False Bay, South Africa. They found that spatial patterns of shark predation were not random and that smaller sharks had more dispersed prey search patterns and lower kill success rates than larger sharks. (
Predation is one of the most fundamental and fascinating interactions in nature, and sharks are some of the fiercest predators on Earth. However, their hunting pattern is difficult to study because it is rarely observed in the wild. As a result, shark predatory behavior has remained much of a mystery. Now, researchers from the United States and Canada are using geographic profiling -- a criminal investigation tool used to track a connected series of crimes and locate where serial criminals live -- to examine the hunting patterns of white sharks in South Africa.
Comment: For a little more on this landmark psychological project see -
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