[HN Gopher] Killer whales groom each other with pieces of kelp
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Killer whales groom each other with pieces of kelp
Author : noleary
Score : 83 points
Date : 2025-06-30 23:26 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| metalman wrote:
| killer whales also share food, carrying various food items in the
| mouths, aaaaaand they are trying to share, with us.....like , in
| the open ocean, wild whales, not some marine land stunt, nope,
| they are throwing food at US!, to see what WE do....awsome freeky
|
| https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/marine-animals...
|
| https://www.livescience.com/animals/orcas/wild-orcas-offer-h...
| jojobas wrote:
| Australian whalers "hired" orcas to help round up whales and
| paid in lips/whatever other parts orcas liked most.
|
| https://killerwhalemuseum.com.au/old-tom/
| arethuza wrote:
| The BBC "Strong Message Here" podcast mentioned orcas
| removing the livers from sharks to eat and joked about "de-
| liver" - now every time I see "deliver" I think of liver
| removal...
| zabzonk wrote:
| If only they didn't live in the sea, and had developed
| frying pan technology, they could cook shark liver and
| kelp!
|
| But to me, the interesting question is how the orcas worked
| out how the great whites had livers in the first place, and
| why they are the best bits (big bits) to eat? I hope the
| are not going to investigate mine, but they don't seem
| interested - yet. See two orcas not eating two teeny
| humans: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/y8iipFTBanc
| adrian_b wrote:
| Fortunately, most orca families appear to have very
| specialized tastes in food, different from family to
| family, and quite complex strategies for acquiring the
| exact kind of food that they prefer.
|
| As long as they can still obtain their chosen food, it
| seems that they do not have any incentives for
| experimenting with alternative foods, like teeny humans.
|
| When whales, seals, penguins, sharks etc. will disappear,
| that might change.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Understand what you are saying - we are not fatty or
| flavoursome enough. But you have to ask - how do they
| know that?
|
| I can understand why (for example) big cats are scared of
| guys carrying AK47s (or even a pointed stick - hello,
| Maasai), and will run away. But the orcas really can't
| experience that, and don't seem scared of us at all. Lots
| of examples of sperm whales attacking humans (see Moby
| Dick) but none of orcas doing it. I know there are those
| yacht-bothering things off Spain.
|
| It is strange. Unless they are going to leave us (Douglas
| Adams) or are just waiting to be our inheritors, which is
| looking more and more likely.
| adrian_b wrote:
| There is a strong correlation between the behavior an
| animal will exhibit against a human and the behavior it
| will exhibit against other animals of its own species.
|
| The animals which do not tolerate other animals of their
| own species and which will attack them and fight with
| them are also very likely to attack humans when they
| believe that humans have invaded their personal space.
| For example, an adult bear will never be truly friendly
| with a human, even with a human that has raised it as a
| cub, because adult bears are never friendly with other
| bears, but they attack any intruders. On the other hand,
| a wolf raised by a human can become tame and attached to
| the human, like a wild wolf would behave towards its real
| parents.
|
| Similarly, male sperm whales fight viciously with any
| other male sperm whales and they also do not hesitate to
| attack any boats with humans that harass them.
|
| AFAIK, intra-specific fighting is not frequent among
| orcas, but they are used to have good relations between
| them, even with some from different pods. This may
| explain their lack of aggressivity against humans, as
| long as they are not perceived as a possible prey.
| santiagolarrain wrote:
| I'm interested in those examples of sperm whales
| attacking humans. I believe those might have been
| defending and not actively attacking. It is said that
| Mocha Dick was docile until attacked. And I think that an
| animal that defends itself when attacked, is a different
| game. I haven't heard of cases of people hunting down and
| fishing Orcas, like we did with Sperm Whales. Perhaps we
| would have had Orcas attack then?
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| Its not that Orcas don't eat people, they don't leave
| witnesses. People disappear in the ocean all the time
| andrewflnr wrote:
| In principle, they could eat the whole shark and notice
| their favorite parts. That must have happened at least
| once. In practice, they probably learn it socially.
| toast0 wrote:
| > But to me, the interesting question is how the orcas
| worked out how the great whites had livers in the first
| place, and why they are the best bits (big bits) to eat?
|
| The liver is like right there inside the shark. Open it
| up and have a look, and take a small bite of all the bits
| and figure out which tastes best. Might need to cooperate
| with a friend.
| gpderetta wrote:
| More on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_
| Eden,_New_Sou...
|
| I'm not sure it is so much the humans hiring the whales as
| opposed of the whales hiring the humans :D
| perrygeo wrote:
| I've always found it strange how the study of human evolution
| focuses on the brain size as a proxy for the capacity for
| intelligence. Yet we have mammals walking and swimming around
| us with larger brains than us. Shouldn't the default assumption
| be that they too are highly intelligent, sentient beings? Human
| exceptionalism is a hell of a bias.
| swores wrote:
| Isn't the idea of brain size being a useful proxy for
| intelligence quite outdated?
|
| Partly because there are animals with larger brains which we
| now _know_ are not very intelligent, with no assumptions
| needed, and partly because some of the most intelligent non-
| primate animals that we know of actually have very small
| brains - like crows and other birds in the corvid family.
| xeonmc wrote:
| It's as they say -- Don't judge a chip by its die size.
| adrian_b wrote:
| While brain size is not a certain sign of intelligence, it
| is correlated with intelligence, especially when the
| comparison is done between more closely related animals,
| which have similar brain structures.
|
| The largest brains belong to elephants and cetaceans, and
| both are among the most intelligent animals. However
| comparing their brain size to that of primates would not
| provide useful information, because for both elephants and
| cetaceans large parts of their brains are dedicated to the
| control of various functions of their large bodies that we
| do not consider as relevant for "intelligence", including
| things like trunk control and echolocation.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Humans think they are whale food is just the same as the cat in
| our yard that sure I'm gonna make a goulash from him instead of
| serving him some.
| swores wrote:
| Would you mind rephrasing your comment, as currently I really
| don't understand what you're trying to say at all...
|
| edit: I originally wrote out a long comment about exactly why
| your comment doesn't make sense to me, but after posting it I
| felt it was ridiculously long for its purpose, so if you want
| to waste time reading it you can find it here -
| https://pastebin.com/Y11P8ETs - but I think asking you to
| explain what you meant more clearly is enough for here :)
| dpassens wrote:
| GP's comment reads reasonably clear to me: humans fearing
| orcas might eat them are about as rational as the cat
| visiting GP's garden, which also seems to be convinced GP
| wants to harm rather than feed it.
| swores wrote:
| Ah, OK that does now make sense to me, thanks.
|
| I think I didn't manage to see that meaning because the
| comment it was replying to had nothing to do with humans
| thinking orcas want to eat them, it was about orcas
| bringing food (like dead fish) to give to the humans. So
| more like a pet cat bringing a dead mouse to its owner
| than a cat in the garden fearing that the human wants to
| eat it?
| shayway wrote:
| For what it's worth I was lost too. Even with the
| explanation it took a few minutes to fully parse.
| mr_toad wrote:
| People do, or have eaten cats, mainly when they're
| starving. I'm not sure I'd want to be in the water with a
| starving Orca.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I'd be fine in the water near an orca in the wild as long
| as there aren't any seals around. There is _one_ alleged
| documented attack by non-captive orcas on humans and that
| guy claims he was near seals at the time.
|
| I'd probably be nervous if I was sailing on the Atlantic
| Iberian coast and saw orcas, they've been ramming and
| pushing rudders and fucking around with sailboats, no
| thanks.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_orca_attacks
| dfxm12 wrote:
| At best, it _is_ missing a verb. This is compounded by it
| 's poor grammar (or poor style) and the fact that it is a
| non-sequitor to the comment it replied to. Someone can
| get reasonably lost reading it.
|
| ETA: swores mentions this in their pastebin
| subjectsigma wrote:
| I watched the video in the first link and it's a pretty extreme
| stretch to say it was "offering food" to the human holding the
| camera. There was barely any indication it _saw_ the person.
|
| The second video looked significantly more promising, however
| the video cuts away before we can actually see what the whale
| does.
|
| Unless I watch a third video and start seeing some very clear
| dog-playing-fetch-like behavior, I'm marking this one as highly
| implausible.
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| not Orcas, but another apex predator offering food...
|
| >> https://roaring.earth/feed-photographer/
| wiether wrote:
| Unrelated but as an ESL, I always felt uncomfortable with the
| name "killer whales".
|
| Not only "whales" is inappropriate according to their scientific
| classification, but also "killer" seems prejudicial since it
| inspire unwarranted fear.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| Its appropriate, inasmuch as they are an apex predator, and
| spend a majority of their lives hunting for food - as opposed
| to many other whales which filter-feed as a harvesting
| mechanism ..
| 0x737368 wrote:
| The reason they're called killer whales is because sailors saw
| them kill whales, so they were called whale killers and then
| there was a switch of the two terms.
| raincole wrote:
| Especially when the alternative is so easy to spell and
| pronounce...
| amelius wrote:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/06/orca-kil...
|
| > Orcas kill for sport. They push, drag, and spin around live
| prey, including sea turtles, seabirds, and sea lions. Some go
| so far as to risk beaching themselves in order to snag a baby
| seal--not to consume, but simply to torture it to death.
|
| We might as well call them the assholes of the sea.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Cats of the sea.
|
| Is them attacking luxury yachts the equivalent of my cat
| knocking down glasses of water?
| bodhiandphysics wrote:
| more like wolves of the sea, since they hunt in packs and
| often attack prey larger than them.
| astura wrote:
| Wolves hunt to eat. Housecats hunt to eat but also for
| sport and fun and will very often not even consume their
| prey, as they are well fed by their owners. That's where
| the "cats of the sea" comment came from. Wolves are very
| risk-averse, and only hunt when they need to eat.
|
| >Some go so far as to risk beaching themselves in order
| to snag a baby seal--not to consume, but simply to
| torture it to death.
|
| This is very much housecat behavior.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| Given how intelligent we believe them to be, it seems
| likely to me that mental stimulation (including perhaps
| "recreation") when not acquiring food is quite meaningful
| to them.
| santiagolarrain wrote:
| Some say they do it to teach their young how to hunt and
| stuff. That is educational. Might be true, since is a very
| social animal that live and hunt in packs of 3 generations.
| adrian_b wrote:
| There is the alternative to call them orcas, which I prefer and
| which is also a much older name for them, being already used by
| Pliny the Elder, two millennia ago.
|
| It would have been simpler if the word "whale" would have been
| applied only to baleen whales, but unfortunately in the Old
| English tradition the word "whale" was used for any big marine
| animal, e.g. not only for sperm whales, but even for walruses.
| kingkawn wrote:
| Other languages cannot be subjected to logic.
| astura wrote:
| > "killer" seems prejudicial since it inspire unwarranted fear.
|
| They are apex predators. I don't think it's prejudicial to call
| an apex predators "killer." It's accurate.
|
| Do you still think it's "prejudicial" after seeing how they
| actually behave? - https://youtube.com/watch?v=35yly16M8p4
|
| Beyond that, it's not inaccurate to call them whales. They
| belong to the same family as dolphins, which are toothed
| whales.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| Murder Dolphins!
| robaato wrote:
| Nice article:
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/30/orca-k...
| These supposedly serious cetaceans have been spotted massaging
| each other with kelp stalks. This is the sort of performative
| nonsense you'd expect from dolphins
| swores wrote:
| Killer Whales, aka Orcas, actually _are_ dolphins!
|
| And they got their name as a mistranslation into English - if I
| remember correctly they were originally named in Spanish as
| "killers of whales" or "whale killers", because they do that
| ceph_ wrote:
| All dolphins are whales. Not all whales are dolphins. It's a
| square / rectangle situation.
|
| Orcas are indeed dolphins, and also whales.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > if I remember correctly they were originally named in
| Spanish as "killers of whales" or "whale killers", because
| they do that
|
| Wiktionary supports that etymology, and it is generally a
| high-quality source for etymology, but it's troubling that
| this one isn't cited.
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| My absolute favorite Orca culture story (yes they have
| transmissible culture!) is the "salmon hat craze," where the
| Orcas carry dead salmon around on their heads, apparently just
| for fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_hat
|
| When you're the apex predator of the world's oceans you can get
| away with all sorts of silly nonsense!
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