A study on the movement patterns of marine predators reveals that Lévy flight foraging strategies are prevalent in open-ocean species, such as sharks, tuna, billfish, and ocean sunfish. These strategies, characterized by long, irregular steps, are more common in less productive, sparsely preyed areas, while Brownian motion, involving shorter, more random steps, is observed in productive, prey-abundant habitats. The research used maximum-likelihood estimation and Akaike information criteria to analyze movement data from 12.29 million steps across 14 species, finding strong support for Lévy patterns in 61 sections, with exponents close to the theoretical optimum of 2. The study also identified switches between Lévy and Brownian movement as animals transition between different habitats. Environmental factors, such as prey abundance and habitat productivity, were found to influence movement patterns, with Lévy behavior associated with less productive waters and Brownian motion with productive shelf or convergence-front habitats. The findings support the Lévy-flight foraging hypothesis, suggesting that marine predators have evolved optimal search strategies to efficiently locate prey in varying environmental conditions. However, the study also highlights the complexity of movement patterns, with some individuals exhibiting a mix of Lévy and Brownian behaviors. The results indicate that Lévy flight behavior is not universal but is context-dependent, adapting to environmental resource distributions. The study underscores the importance of considering environmental context in understanding animal movement patterns and supports further research into the evolutionary basis of such behaviors.A study on the movement patterns of marine predators reveals that Lévy flight foraging strategies are prevalent in open-ocean species, such as sharks, tuna, billfish, and ocean sunfish. These strategies, characterized by long, irregular steps, are more common in less productive, sparsely preyed areas, while Brownian motion, involving shorter, more random steps, is observed in productive, prey-abundant habitats. The research used maximum-likelihood estimation and Akaike information criteria to analyze movement data from 12.29 million steps across 14 species, finding strong support for Lévy patterns in 61 sections, with exponents close to the theoretical optimum of 2. The study also identified switches between Lévy and Brownian movement as animals transition between different habitats. Environmental factors, such as prey abundance and habitat productivity, were found to influence movement patterns, with Lévy behavior associated with less productive waters and Brownian motion with productive shelf or convergence-front habitats. The findings support the Lévy-flight foraging hypothesis, suggesting that marine predators have evolved optimal search strategies to efficiently locate prey in varying environmental conditions. However, the study also highlights the complexity of movement patterns, with some individuals exhibiting a mix of Lévy and Brownian behaviors. The results indicate that Lévy flight behavior is not universal but is context-dependent, adapting to environmental resource distributions. The study underscores the importance of considering environmental context in understanding animal movement patterns and supports further research into the evolutionary basis of such behaviors.