Watch a pod of orcas pretending to drown one of their own in macabre training session
Orca mothers teach their young people how to pretend to go each other. The brutal training session teaches orcas the skills necessary to kill the largest animal that has ever lived.
In the video, a young orca (Orcinus Orca) pretends to be prey, leaving the rest of the pod to surround him and submerges his breath to prevent him from breathing. The members of the POD train by holding the head of the young orca underwater for a while before freeing him.
Later in the clip, the pod applies this technique while hunting a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). The orcas seem to take the whale off guard, giving them an advantage in what would otherwise be an unequal fight with the huge whale. They crowd around the head of the whale and overwhelming its blowing hole, but it is not known if they manage to kill the giant mammal.
While the researchers already knew that Orcs can kill whales while drowning them“This hunting behavior for practices has never been filmed before”, a spokesperson for the BBC, who filmed the images of his new series of nature “Parenthood”, ” said to The Times.
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The clip is told by the British biologist and diffuser Sir David Pantal. “These orcas must be at the top of their game,” explains careful in the images. “They hunt the biggest animals that have ever lived: blue whales.”
The filmmakers used specialized underwater stabilization devices called Gimbals and Tow Cameras to capture the scene off the coast of Bremer Bay in Western Australia. “This technology allowed the crew to travel at the same speed as the ORCA Hunting Pack and has provided new information on their behavior,” BBC spokesperson for Times told Times.
Bremer Bay houses an Orca population of around 200 people, making it the largest known congregation in Orcas in the southern hemisphere, according to the tour operator Bremer Bay swing. The pods vary in size from six to 20 orcas, and they generally eat Giant squid (Architeuthis Dux) and Colossal Squid (Mesonychotuthis Hamiltoni) rather than blue whales.
Orcs probably hunt blue whales not for food, but simply because they can and want to have fun, say the experts. “They play with [whales] As cats play with their prey, ” Nancy BlackA marine biologist who manages the observation company of the whales Monterey Bay Whale Watch, said National Geographic After images of orcas drone attacks a blue whale emerged in 2017.
But going after a lonely adult whale is risky, so orcas generally chase the blue whales that are sick or have their calves trailer. The tires of the calves faster than adult whales, delaying and becoming easy prey for orcas, reported National Geographic.
The BBC show “Parenting“is a five-part series on some of the strategies and behaviors used by parents of animals that strengthen the survival of their young people. In the United States, the series should be broadcast on the” nature “of PBS later this year or at the beginning of next year.
“My personal favorite must be the story of the African Social Spider, a spider mother who not only lifts 50 offspring alongside her sisters, but ultimately sacrifices her own body to feed her growing young in an act called Matriphagy,” said Jeff Wilson, director of the series, The Times.
You can Watch a stomach turning clip for this sacrifice here.
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