Been Down Under and seen amazing things? Here’s something new that we are seeing in dolphins. One particular population of dolphins in Western Australia has been observed holding a large conch shell in their beaks, and shaking a fish into their mouths.

If you think this to be a one-off spontaneous event, think again. When researchers from Murdoch University in Perth first photographed this activity in 2007, they were not quite sure what’s happening.

"It's a fleeting glimpse — you look at it and think, that's kind of weird," said Simon Allen, a researcher from the Murdoch University's Cetacean Research Unit. "Maybe they're playing, maybe they're socializing, maybe males are presenting a gift to a female or something like that, maybe the animals are actually eating the animal inside."

But further analysis proved otherwise, for they found the back of a fish hanging out of the shell and realizing that the shaking was to a means to extract the fish that was sheltering in the shell. This triggered a search through records for dolphins in the eastern part of Shark Bay, as this population has been studied for some three decades. Surprisingly, similar sightings have been observed in some half a dozen sightings over two decades.

In the midst to verify their observation, the researchers carried out a research beginning this May. According to Allen, similar sightings have been observed at least seven times over this four-month period.

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"There's a possibility here — and it's speculation at this stage — that this sort of change from seeing it six or seven times in 21 years to seeing it six or seven times in three months gives us that tantalizing possibility that it might be spreading before our very eyes," Allen said. "It's too early to say definitively yet, but we'll be watching very closely over the next couple of field seasons" Apparently this is not the first time these Shark Bay dolphins demonstrated their intelligence. Famed as the Earth’s first tool-using marine mammals, they have been credited for developing two foraging techniques previously. One where the dolphins briefly beaching themselves to grab fishes they have driven on shore, as well as using the conical bit of sponges to cover their head like a cap, shielding them as they forage for food on the sea floor.

However both of these behaviors are spread “vertically”, through female dolphin populations, from mother to daughter. But this newly discovered behavior with shells might be spreading “horizontally”.

"If it spreads horizontally, then we would expect to see it more often and we'd expect to see it between 'friends'," said Allen, adding that dolphins are known for having preferences in terms of companions and whom they spend time with. "Most of the sightings from this year are in the same habitat where we first saw it in 2007, and a couple of the individuals this year are known to associate with the ones that we saw doing it a year or two ago."

Are these dolphins really manipulating objects? Or are the shells just toys to them?

"If we could put some shells in a row or put them facing down or something like that and then come back the next day, if we don't actually see them do it but find evidence that they've turned the shell over or make it into an appealing refuge for a fish, then that implies significant forward planning on the dolphins' parts," said Allen. "The nice idea is that there is this intriguing possibility that they might manipulate the object beforehand. Then that might change using the shell as just a convenient object into actual tool use."

“The extent to which the conch shell is manipulated and the rarity of the behavior suggest that ‘conching’ takes some skill and practice and might thus be another rare individual foraging tactic in Shark Bay,” according to researchers led by Michael Krutzen from University of Zurich.

The amazing things we are seeing from our environment is evidence that mankind has so much more to learn about other species. From “bottle-opening” octopi to tool wielding chimpanzees, now we may even have “trap-laying” dolphins. Thank goodness we are not on their diet menu!

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