Dolphins know how to get creative when grabbing a quick bite to eat, using their own special brand of street smarts to hunt for food. Recently, a team of Australian researchers witnessed two cases of dolphin intelligence in the wild: They caught Indo-Pacific dolphins using empty shells as tools to trap and eat fish, a rarely seen behavior known as “shelling.”
The two shelling events, both observed in 2025, highlight the specialized skills that bottlenose dolphins develop for foraging, as described in a new study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science. In one of the events, the researchers even saw a mother dolphin and her calf both engaging in the shelling, indicating that the behavior may be passed down to offspring.
“I was incredibly excited as soon as I saw the shell above water[…]. We had been surveying this area for 2-3 years and not observed shelling prior; so this was a very pleasant unexpected surprise!” study author Alexis Levengood, a lecturer in animal ecology at the University of the Sunshine Coast, told Discover.
How Dolphins May Use Tools
(Image Courtesy of Georgina Hume)
Dolphins are consistently touted as one of the most intelligent animals, and this acclaim has a lot to do with their knack for using different tools. For example, some Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia have been seen “sponging” — putting basket sponges on their beaks (or “rostrums”) to protect their skin while scouring for food on the seafloor.
Explore All OptionsAnd then there’s shelling, previously only observed in the dolphins at Shark Bay. There, the behavior has only been seen in less than 2 percent of the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin population, suggesting that it is a highly specialized skill. This behavior involves dolphins chasing fish into a large empty shell, lifting it above the water’s surface to try draining the fish into their mouths.
Though shelling is thought to be rare, it may be more widespread than previously thought.
Read More: Dolphins Create Invisible Vortices With Their Tails, Helping Them Power Ahead Underwater
Observing Shelling Behavior in Dolphins
(Image Courtesy of Isla Steel)
In July 2025, researchers were busy surveying whales at the Great Sandy Marine Park in Queensland when they noticed an adult female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin bringing an empty shell above water. The dolphin, which the researchers named Stevie Nicks, lifted the shell multiple times, but eventually dropped it. The researchers couldn’t follow the dolphin any further due to rain; regardless, they had stumbled upon a rare sight.
According to a statement on the new study, however, shelling events at the Great Sandy Marine Park were previously observed and photographed in 2013 and 2019, as revealed by local tour operators. The dolphin population may have been shelling for longer than expected, the researchers say, but studies haven’t explored the behavior in detail.
Then, in October 2025, the researchers saw another shelling event take place around the same area as the first observation. This time, a mother and calf pair (named Maserati and Bentley, respectively) were seen lifting a shell above water. While the researchers weren’t able to confirm whether the shell contained any fish, drone footage does appear to show the body or tail of a suspected lizardfish.
Most importantly, though, this second event shows how shelling could be an instance of a skill being passed down from mother to calf. After the mother lifted the shell, the calf attempted to do the same, suggesting that it observed the behavior and learned from its mother.
Dolphin calves typically spend multiple years with their mothers, learning how to find and catch prey, interact with other dolphins, and find their way around their home range, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation USA. Being so close to their mothers, bottlenose dolphin calves get to learn all sorts of skills like shelling.
“Work done in Shark Bay showed that shelling was learned from peer to peer or moved horizontally through the social network. However, our observation of a calf attempting to shell just after its mother was shelling suggests maternal social transmission, where the calf learns from its mother, may also play an important role in how this behavior is learned,” Levengood told Discover.
A Smart Way to Use Shells
The separate occurrences of shelling off the coasts of Western and Eastern Australia, more than 3,700 miles apart, have intrigued researchers. They also don’t know for sure what specific purpose shelling serves, but since the behavior requires such specialized skills to handle shells as tools, they say it could be a way to reduce competition for food among other dolphins.
Interestingly, specialized foraging techniques like shelling may largely be done by female dolphins. This is because males are often occupied with social endeavors, whether it’s finding mates or forming alliances with other dolphins. Females, on the other hand, need to learn these kinds of skills to fulfill the energy demands of reproduction.
While the full extent of shelling isn’t known yet, it does show that certain populations of dolphins can master skills that require a great deal of special knowledge.
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
- This article references information from a study published in Marine Mammal Science: Observations of Shelling Behavior and Potential Evidence of Vertical Social Learning by Bottlenose Dolphins in the Great Sandy Marine Park, Queensland Australia
- This article references information from Whale and Dolphin Conservation USA: How do dolphins give birth?
