Unique pictures retrieved from cameras placed on albatrosses' backs show the birds feeding alongside Orca Orcinus orca – also known as Killer Whale.
The images were captured by placing specially developed cameras in the centre of four Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophrys nesting on Bird Island, off the north-west tip of South Georgia in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. The cameras weighed just 83 grams, took an image every 30 seconds and could store up to 10,000 images in total.
The work was undertaken by Professor Takahashi from the National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo who worked alongside colleagues from Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan and the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. "We were so bored because most of images showed just 'featureless' ocean," said Professor Takahashi. "Then we suddenly saw some albatrosses flying in front of the camera and then found the Killer Whale in the image."
