Hunters of the Tide

Every year, along the pristine tropical coastline of Southern Africa, the ocean becomes a stage for a grand and complex drama: the migration of dolphins. Bottlenose, common, and humpback dolphins are the stars of this annual event, their intelligence and agility defining their role as apex predators. Yet, as they navigate the reefs and open waters, they share the stage with a host of unexpected hunters, each with unique and deadly strategies.

The story begins with a pod of bottlenose dolphins gliding along the coral reefs. These intelligent predators use the tides to their advantage, driving fish into shallow waters where their prey has nowhere to hide. High-speed video captures their precision strikes, revealing how their snouts act as battering rams to stun fish before swallowing them whole. Below them, the reef is a living tapestry of life and death. A crocodile fish lies in ambush, its mottled skin blending perfectly with the coral rubble. When a flat, large moonfish ventures too close, the crocodile fish erupts from the sand, swallowing its prey in a flash of fins and teeth.

As sunlight filters through the water, a floral moray eel slithers from its crevice. With a jaw armed with alien-like secondary jaws, it snatches a crab scuttling by, dragging it back into its lair. Not far away, a school of cuttlefish dance and sway in a mating trance near a bed of seagrass and proceed to lay eggs. But danger lurks as the cuttles converge, their hypnotic colour patterns luring small fish within striking range.