Food Habits
Marbled murrelets feed below the water surface on small fish and invertebrates. Some principal foods include sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus), Pacific herring (Clupea haringus), capelin (Mallotus villosus), and the invertebrates Euphausia pacifica and Thysanoessa spinifera.
Marbled murrelets often forage in pairs but do not feed in large flocks as do other alcids. Loose aggregations of 500 or more birds occasionally occur in winter. DNA tests have shown that the foraging duos are not necessarily breeding pairs. Subadults feed singly; but in early July, when pairs of adults are still feeding young, mixed flocks begin to form. Marbled murrelets feed during the day and at night.
Read more about this topic: Marbled Murrelet
Famous quotes containing the words food and/or habits:
“Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 3:4.
“Although a firm swat could bring a recalcitrant child swiftly into line, the changes were usually external, lasting only as long as the swatter remained in view....Permanent transformation had to be internal....The habits of self discipline, as laborious and frustrating as they were to achieve, offered the only real possibility of keeping children safe from their own excesses as well as the omnipresent dangers of society.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)