TACTICAL TEAMWORK
How animals hunt in teams
Greater numbers doesn’t always mean greater reward, as some marine species work best alone in sneaking up unseen. However, others use larger numbers to surround and control their prey. Bottlenose dolphins, for example, have allocated roles. Groups have been seen sticking to the same jobs each time food is required, with all their cooperative hunting involving ‘drivers’, which shepherd schools of fish into a suitable area, and ‘barriers’, which block the fish and steer them to the surface. Other groups have more complex strategies, requiring more jobs.