MEMBER EXCLUSIVE
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) represent top-tier predators capable of subduing prey considerably larger than themselves.(Image credit: The Asahi Shimbun Premium via Getty Images)ShareShare by:
- Copy link
- X
Share this article 0Join the conversationFollow usAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleNewsletterSubscribe to our newsletter
In March of 2019, scientists observing the waters off southwestern Australia documented a chilling scene: a group of around twelve orcas coordinating to bring down one of the world’s largest animals to its demise. The orcas consumed massive portions of tissue from the sides of a fully grown blue whale, which perished about an hour afterward. This was the first instance ever recorded of killer whale predation on a blue whale, but it wouldn’t be the only time.
In more recent times, killer whales (Orcinus orca) have also been observed seizing baby pilot whales and ripping apart sharks in order to devour their livers. Furthermore, near the coasts of Spain and Portugal, a limited group of orcas has initiated the practice of striking and demolishing boats.
You may like
-
Orcas in the Gulf of California paralyze young great white sharks before ripping out their livers
-
Killer whales are teaming up with dolphins on salmon hunts, study finds — but not everyone agrees
-
Wolf stealing underwater crab traps caught on camera for the first time — signalling ‘new dimension’ in their behavior
They’ve got parts of their brain that are associated with memory and emotion that are significantly more developed than even in the human brain.
It appears improbable that orcas’ brains are undergoing alterations on a structural level, according to Josh McInnes, a marine ecologist specializing in orca studies at the University of British Columbia. “Behavioral shifts have the ability to impact anatomical modifications within an animal or a group” — although only over extended periods of evolutionary processes, McInnes shared with Live Science.
Nevertheless, killer whales are rapid learners, implying their capacity to educate each other in certain formidable techniques, therefore evolving into a “smarter” collective. Furthermore, specific seemingly novel strategies may genuinely be age-old actions that humans are merely documenting currently. Just like with humans, particular learned actions evolve into trends, fluctuating in social patterns.
Recurrent interactions involving humans by way of boat transit and fishing operations might also compel orcas to assimilate new actions. Further, as their surrounding ecosystem shifts, orcas need to act rapidly and depend on communal education to endure.
Teaching hunting strategies
Orcas (Orcinus orca) attacked an adult blue whale off the coast of Australia and inserted their heads inside the whale’s mouth to feed on its tongue.
Science Spotlight explores in more detail the science that’s gaining momentum and grants our audience the insights required concerning these progressions. Our pieces feature patterns among different disciplines, the means through which current studies modify established theories, and the shifts happening in the overview of our existence due to scientific breakthroughs.
There is absolutely no ambiguity surrounding orcas learning from each other. A lot of the expertise these animals impart and exchange is directly linked to their function as intensely sophisticated top-level predators.
You may like
-
Orcas in the Gulf of California paralyze young great white sharks before ripping out their livers
-
Killer whales are teaming up with dolphins on salmon hunts, study finds — but not everyone agrees
-
Wolf stealing underwater crab traps caught on camera for the first time — signalling ‘new dimension’ in their behavior
Researchers detailed orcas killing and consuming blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) for the initial occasion within a piece that surfaced during the prior year. In the ensuing months and years succeeding the primary assault within March of 2019, orcas hunted a blue whale calf and juvenile throughout a couple more incidents, forcing the young blue whales under the depths to drown them.
This newly registered hunting behavior functions as a case study regarding social learning, with approaches distributed and carried from grown-up killer whales to their younglings, as explained by Robert Pitman, an aquatic ecologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute, communicated through email with Live Science. “Anything the adults learn will be passed along” originating from the superior female within a group to her descendants, he said.
Bringing down a blue whale “demands teamwork and synchronization,” Pitman noted. Killer whales could have assimilated and bettered the skill sets needed to address such colossal prey in reaction to the convalescence of whale populations subsequent to whaling. Such know-how then became shared, up to the point where the killer whales acquired significant skill in hunting possibly even the greatest animal on Earth, Pitman stated.
Old tricks, new observations
The remains of a shark that was attacked by orcas off the coast of South Africa.
Some of the striking actions specialists have noticed recently may in fact be persistent habits.
As an illustration, observers remarked during the blue whale attacks that the killer whales slid their heads inside the mouths of existing whales for feeding upon their tongues. However, that seemingly isn’t a fresh activity — more similar to people experiencing it at a proximate distance.
“Killer whales happen to be akin to people in that they have their ‘chosen cuts of meat,'” Pitman specified. “When preying on large whales, they almost constantly ingest the tongue first, combined with situations wherein such action represents the complete meal that they ingest.”
Tongue is not the sole delicacy sought out by killer whales. Off the coast of South Africa, a pair of males — bearing the nicknames Port and Starboard — have, across a span of various years, targeted sharks for the purpose of extracting their livers.
Killer whales are like humans in that they have their ‘preferred cuts of meat.’
Although the behavior initially came across as unexpected to specialists, it remains doubtful that killer whales have only recently adopted liver consumption as a result of socialized learning, as Michael Weiss, a behavioral ecologist and exploration executive at the Center for Whale Research in Washington state, mentioned to Live Science.
That is because, within the current year, scientists additionally captured footage depicting killer whales devouring the liver from a whale shark off the shores of Baja California, Mexico. The probability of Port and Starboard disseminating their know-how spanning thousands of miles of ocean constitutes an extreme unlikelihood, thereby inferring that liver consumption most likely functions as a common and established activity.
“Given the increase in cameras and boat traffic, we have initiated seeing a number of these actions that had escaped our attention until now,” Weiss stated.
Sharing scavenging techniques
Orcas make an easy meal by following fishing boats and feasting on their catch.
Killer whales excel at and impart more than mere hunting practices. Various populations worldwide have mastered the ability to pilfer catches destined for human ingestion from the longlines used in commercial aquatic operations and communicated this insight.
In the southern region of the Indian Ocean, proximate to the Crozet Islands, a pair of killer whale groups have progressively gathered from longlines ever since fishing actions expanded in the region starting in the 1990s. Circa 2018, the full population of killer whales among those waters had instructed each other to enjoy longline buffets, along with entire groupings that formerly hunted seals and penguins creating a preference for toothfish captured by humans.
Sometimes, orcas’ capacity to promptly assimilate fresh behaviors extends to deadly implications. Around Alaska, killer whales only recently initiated consuming groundfish captured by bottom trawlers, though a multitude finish up getting tangled and losing their lives due to fishing hardware.
“This behavior may be being shared between individuals, and that’s maybe why we’re seeing an increase in some of these mortality events,” McInnes said.
Playing macabre games