Image via Miles Ritter
I haven’t really touched on fish yet. And I’m not going to now, since whales are actually mammals.
Sure they look cute when you see them in Sea-World but orcas have some grim and fitting nicknames; killer whale, wolves of the sea… They are highly effective and imaginative pack hunters. They live in family groups that have their own language that tends to stay the same for generations. They also have complex, matriarchal societies, on par with those of elephants’s and higher primates’s.
Something that I didn’t know before I started researching this, is that there are three to five distinct types, possibly even races, of killer whales. They vary in size, color, diet and somewhat even in behavior. They are possibly highly intelligent, althgouh it’s hard to gauge because their living environment is so different from ours. Part of it can be seen in the video below:
They not only purposely beach themselves, but mothers will push their calves on the beach or maim a sea lion to make it a weaker prey, so that the calves will be able to learn the technique. The mothers then patiently wait in the wings to rescue the calves should they need it.
Image via Edward Rooks
Recent Comments