Scientists have attached cameras to white sharks to reveal previously unseen hunting tactics through densely packed kelp forests.
Footage collected from eight sharks off the South African coast shows that the predators are able to navigate through tightly packed forests.
Researchers, including Murdoch University PhD student Oliver Jewell, safely attached cameras and motion sensors to the sharks that were designed to stay on for a set number of hours, before coming off and being collected at the surface.
Previously, it was thought that white sharks were too large to enter kelp forests, instead hunting at the edge.
Mr Jewell told Murdoch University: “The film we collected gives us a new perspective on this species.
“We can see how they interact with their surroundings in real time, and they are able to make some pretty spectacular 180 degree turns in the kelp forest.
“In the past we would have to guess. We would track sharks to the edge of the kelp forest but then lose the signal.”
The research, a collaboration between Murdoch University, Monterey Bay Aquarium and Stanford University, was published in the journal Biology Letters.
