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
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 :)
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ..
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/marine-animals...
https://www.livescience.com/animals/orcas/wild-orcas-offer-h...
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 :)
https://killerwhalemuseum.com.au/old-tom/
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
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.
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.
Not only "whales" is inappropriate according to their scientific classification, but also "killer" seems prejudicial since it inspire unwarranted fear.
> 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.
Is them attacking luxury yachts the equivalent of my cat knocking down glasses of water?
>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.
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.
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.