Marcus Drymon

Marcus Drymon

Apr 16, 2015

Group 6 Copy 56
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Feathers

To better envision this incredible interaction, below are a few photos of feathers taken from the stomachs of juvenile tiger sharks caught in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

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  • Candee Laine
    Candee Laine
    I did some research over the years on West Indian boas throughout the Caribbean. While studying the Bimini boa my colleagues and I noticed that there were songbirds all over the island on small shrubs and trees at night, and that the boas were gorging themselves on these little birds roosting at night by the hundreds. During spring and fall migration, thousands of these birds would be moving through the Gulf. I would assume the tiger sharks are eating them when they can too. Are you only finding them in stomachs of smaller sharks? If so, I would think they are somehow benefiting from roosting migrants in mangroves. perhaps??
    Apr 20, 2015
  • Marcus Drymon
    Marcus DrymonResearcher
    Hey Candee, thanks for your thoughts. First of all, those Bimini boas eating those songbirds is NUTS! How cool! The migration question is one I've pondered, but working with a migratory bird group at the University of Southern Mississippi, it seems as though about half of the bird species we are identifying from these tiger sharks are non-migratory. So while the sharks are benefiting from birds falling out from migrations, I think there must be more to the story. Thanks for your insights from the boa - that's wild!
    Apr 21, 2015
  • Marcus Drymon
    Marcus DrymonResearcher
    I forget which animals these samples came from, so I'm not sure what species of bird they're from. I'm sure we didn't have one identified as a gull though.
    Apr 20, 2015
  • Leslie Nitikman Sokolow
    Leslie Nitikman Sokolow
    What kind of birds are these from? The middle looks like a flicker. Is the bottom one from a gull?
    Apr 18, 2015

About This Project

Growing concern for declining shark populations is driving the need for effective conservation and management plans. An important, yet often missing, component of these plans is accurate dietary data. Tiger sharks are iconic predators, notorious for the wide variety of prey they consume. Using satellite tags, our goal is to investigate the link between oil platforms and the prevalence of an intriguing prey item common to tiger sharks in the northern Gulf of Mexico: terrestrial birds.

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