Adults can get up to 110 feet long and weigh more than 300,000 pounds, making them the most gargantuan creatures on Earth. But blue whales are a whole different meal-and then some. There’s plenty of documentation of orcas attacking other giant mammals they’ll regularly prey on young humpback whales and full-sized minke whales. This was a collaborative effort between scientists & tourism operators.The #Bremer #orca yet again teaching us something new! Link below /8Gn0It9RvK- Dr. "They're just going for a reaction.Happy to share our new publication reporting on the first records of #killerwhales predating on the largest animals on the planet- blue whales.
"They're like kids sometimes," says Black. "We don't know how they're able to be so exact."Īccording to Black, the attack on the blue whale may have been a sort of practice run, but she thinks it's more likely the orcas were simply roughhousing with the gentle giant.
The recent drone footage shows the orcas emerging stealthily from the water at the same moment in a perfectly formed line. However, orcas are completely silent during a hunt, making it unclear how the animals coordinate their attacks. Able to hear for tens of miles, orcas signal each other with distinct calls and whistles, and they use clicking sounds to locate prey. Orcas use a variety of methods to communicate underwater, including a complex system of audio calls. When hunting large prey like whales, orcas will circle their target, making it more difficult for the animal to escape. While the motives of the humpbacks cannot be stated with absolute certainty, similar incidents observed in regions around the world have led scientists to believe the whales may be acting altruistically and protecting other whales from orca attacks. In the same region in 2012, a pod of humpback whales was observed preventing orcas from feeding on the gray whale calf they had just killed. Black estimates as many as 33 orcas were in the bay in April to prey on whale calves. As they pass by Monterey with their calves in tow, it's common to see an increased number of orcas. Perhaps with good reason: While orcas don't typically manage to take down adult blue and gray whales, they will chase whale mothers to separate them from their calves, ultimately wearing out a young whale until it becomes easy prey.īetween April and May, gray whales begin to migrate from their calving waters in Mexico to the feeding waters near Alaska. A sudden tower of condensed air from the blowhole of a blue whale caught the team's attention, and then the killer whales appeared.ĭespite being significantly larger than the orcas, the blue whale seemed to be startled by the sudden onset of the pod of predators. The Monterey Bay Whale Watch team had been following about 15 killer whales on the day she captured this drone footage. In the 25 years she's been observing orcas and other cetaceans in the bay, she's become familiar with how orcas interact with the region's other residents. They are very playful and social."īlack runs the whale-watching business Monterey Bay Whale Watch. "They play with like cats play with their prey. "They were probably doing it for the heck of it," says Black. The real reason the orcas likely orchestrated an attack? In this instance, the large blue whale flipped on its side, sending up what seemed like a wall of water, and swam away at a speed that far outpaced the orcas, says marine biologist Nancy Black, who captured the event from on board a whale-watching boat. But even these fearsome predators don't stand much of a chance against a mature blue whale: The largest animal on the planet, an adult blue whale can reach up to a hundred feet long and weigh close to 200 tons. Orcas, also known as killer whales, are known to prey on other marine mammals, including dolphins and seals. In drone footage captured on May 18 in Monterey, California, a group of orcas is seen carrying out a coordinated attack on a blue whale.
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