Usually fatal encounter turns ‘very rare pairing’ into ‘best friends’ off UK coast

A trio of marine animals leapt out of the water and soared through the air off the coast of the U.K. Mundane? Not at all. Usually when these animals cross paths, the encounter proves fatal for one of them. This time, however, something was different.

Twice over the last few weeks, a pair of bottlenose dolphins and a harbor porpoise have been seen having fun together off the coast of England, the wildlife organization ORCA said in a March 10 news release.

Typically, bottlenose dolphins “aggressively attack” the smaller harbor porpoises, “often playing with them like a football, launching them into the air and eventually killing them,” the wildlife organization said.

But this pair of dolphins seems “to have teamed up” with the porpoise, experts said, in a “very rare pairing.”

Terry Carne was scanning the water off the coast of Newquay when he spotted the animals. “I saw two bottlenose dolphins coming in towards land, which were the first I’d seen at Newquay for a long time,” he told ORCA.

“As they got a little nearer, I thought there was a third, all breaching, but realised that one was in fact a porpoise,” Carne said. “I assumed that the porpoise was trying to escape, and when I saw it leap in the air I thought the bottlenose had struck it.”

After watching closer, Carne realized “actually what I saw was the porpoise breaching with the dolphins, initially forward leaps, before seeing it jump high in the air.”

The “unlikely best friends” were spotted playing acrobatic games together, ORCA said. The porpoise was even seen “copying” the leaps of the dolphins, a “very unusual” site.

The trio was first seen near Newquay on March 2 and seen again near St. Ives on March 8, ORCA said.

Lucy Babey, ORCA’s head of science and conservation, explained that “while (these species) share the same habitat, porpoises tend to steer clear of dolphins, so to see them playing and sticking together over such a long period is a really rare event.”

ORCA encouraged marine wildlife watchers to report any further sightings of the trio of animals.

Newquay and St. Ives are located along the northern coast of Cornwall, a region about 255 miles southwest of London.

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