Animals hunt in groups is an amazing example of both intelligence and communicating between individuals , fromorcas team up upto sink racing yacht to prides of Leo andpacks of wolvestaking down prey often much large than themselves . While these are moderately common example , postulate a slip below the wave reveal that even tinysea slugsare capable of working together to get the ultimate repast .
The nudibranch molluskBerghia stephanieaeonly eat a sea anemone mintage calledExaiptasia diaphana , however research has now revealed that the nudibranchs are feeding on these anemone in coterie .
E. diaphanais grievous prey – the windflower hold nematocysts and acontia , interchangeable variety of sting cell to those incur on ajellyfish . The anemone are also equal to of killing and eating their predator . Therefore , the team trust that much like a lion superbia would hound in a group to take down a dangerous Bison bison , the nudibranchs are teaming up to reduce the likelihood of potential accidental injury .
The team conducted a series of experiments in the science lab to research howB. stephanieaewould react to different feeding situation . First , they placed one sea anemone for every nudibranch inside the armoured combat vehicle but rather than eat alone , outcome showed that the nudibranchs fed socially . The feeding together was not influenced by how hungry the nudibranchs were in test where they were n’t fed for seven or three days .
In a different experiment , the team place two windflower inside the tank but find that the nudibranchs did not circulate themselves evenly between the distich .
The researchers also thought that the sea clout could be following slime trails leave by the others in the tank , which could regulate which anemone they choose to fee on . By localize a nudibranch in the tank to leave trails , but then take it before it could feed on any of the anemones , the team found that the remainder of the sea slugs did not choose to feed on the anemone with the goo trail lead to it any more than chance .
This kind of run behaviour is bang as aggregation , where the individual act independently but come up together to feed . The squad think that make multiple someone feeding on the anemone reduces the risk of infection of injury for the eating nudibranch but have yet to go out the mechanisms that trigger this .
The paper is put out on the preprint serverbioRxivand has not yet undergone match revaluation .
