Sealion mounted camera shows predation, mother teaching pup!

University of Adelaide and SARDI PhD candidate Nathan Angelakis has been using cameras attached to Australian sea lions (Neophoca cinerea), to capture movement and dive data to identify and map critical habitats and foraging behaviours. The footage has shown that Australian sea lions use specialised strategies like flipping rocks, ambush predation and chasing to capture a variety of prey including fish, sharks, rays and cephalopod species. They also use these strategies throughout a diverse range of habitats like luxuriant seagrass meadows, vast sand plains, deep water sponge gardens, and complex reef ecosystems. The videos also allowed scientists to map these unexplored areas along the Great Southern Reef. Some of the most astonishing footage collected from Nathan Angelakis’ sealion camera project is that of a mother and pup. It has been hypothesised that Australian sea lion mothers use social learning to pass on foraging skills to their pups, a behaviour that has now been captured on video for the first time! Angelakis describes the interactions of a mother taking her pup on an 8 hour trip to sea, “When she was with her pup, they continuously dove together, moving across diverse habitats. We even got footage of the mother capturing a giant cuttlefish, while the pup was right next to her, suggesting that the mother is demonstrating to the pup how to locate, capture and consume prey. Getting this footage was very fortunate, as it provides crucial insight into some of the factors that drive the unique life and 18-month reproductive cycle of Australian sea lions.” Learn more at This project was supported with funding from The Australian Government under the National Environmental Science Program (NESP), Marine and Coastal Hub () and The Ecological Society of Australia under the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment