title: White Sharks Exploit the Sun during Predatory Approaches.
abstract: There is no conclusive evidence of any nonhuman animal using the sun as part of its predation strategy. Here, we show that the world's largest predatory fish-the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias)-exploits the sun when approaching baits by positioning the sun directly behind them. On sunny days, sharks reversed their direction of approach along an east-west axis from morning to afternoon but had uniformly distributed approach directions during overcast conditions. These results show that white sharks have sufficient behavioral flexibility to exploit fluctuating environmental features when predating. This sun-tracking predation strategy has a number of potential functional roles, including improvement of prey detection, avoidance of retinal overstimulation, and predator concealment.
authors: School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia 5042, Australia.
authors: Charlie
authors: C
authors: Huveneers
authors: Dirk
authors: D
authors: Holman
authors: Rachel
authors: R
authors: Robbins
authors: Andrew
authors: A
authors: Fox
authors: John A
authors: JA
authors: Endler
authors: Alex H
authors: AH
authors: Taylor
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D009949:Orientation; D011235:Predatory Behavior; D012754:Sharks / Q000502:physiology*; D016082:Solar System; D013037:Spatial Behavior