When you purchase through link on our website , we may realise an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
Orcas are one of the most successful specie in the seas , reigning at the top of the food mountain chain in every ocean . And one of the reasons they are so successful is dim-witted : they ’re really , really ingenious .
Orcas ( Orcinus orca)have rich and trenchant societal life and have learned a noteworthy variety of hunting strategies to take down everything from blueish whales togreat white shark . Here are 10 example oforcaintelligence that testify killer whales are killer smart .
Two orca swimming underwater.
Related : Orcas are larn terrifying new behaviors . Are they getting impertinent ?
They get caught up in fads
Orcas are social apprentice and occasionally get caught up in fads — a temporary behavior jump by one or two individuals , adopt by others and then swiftly abandon . For example , a population in the Pacific went through a phase angle of wear down salmon as hat in the 1980s . The trend started when a female killer start carrying around dead Salmon River on her head , and in the weeks that followed , the behavior spread to two other pods in the same residential district .
investigator distinguish the Salmon River - wearing orcas doing the same behavior the following yr and then never saw them carry Pisces on their head again , according to a 2004 recapitulation of nonhuman acculturation published in the journalBiological Conservation . Recentorca flak on boatsin Europe may be another instance of a grampus giant fad .
Related : Orcas attack gravy holder with ruthless efficiency , tearing off rudders in just 15 second
Four orcas playing underwater.
They engage in “greeting ceremonies”
Killer whales have complicated social rituals and even rent in what researcher call " salutation ceremony . " These interaction are the killer whale equivalent of a mosh pit , with orcas draw up in two rows and then crumple together , Smithsonian Magazinereported . During one such event , the greeting coincided with a birth . Three orca pods reunify in the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the boundary between the U.S. and Canada in 2020 , and as the orcas whistle and clicked to each other , a pregnant female person produced a sura , KUOW , Seattle ’s National Public Radio news post , describe . The killer were n’t foraging and appeared to be there just to socialize on the twenty-four hours of the birthing .
They have distinct dialects
Orcas go in pods found around related female parent and their posterity . Each cod has its own distinctive calls , like different dialect of the same linguistic process . The metal money can learn to mimic new sounds , which may help oneself them form these dialects .
Researchers taught a enwrapped femaleorca called Wikie to mime human wordslike " hello " and " bye - bye , " as well as the calls of some other animate being . Wikie learned chop-chop and could multiply some new sounds on her first attack .
They employ specialized hunting strategies
Orcas con highly specialized hunting strategy and egest that knowledge to their progeny . Some killer whales in Argentina beach themselves to snap seals on the shoring , while in Antarctica , other populations make undulation to push seals off float sea ice .
And it ’s not just seals they acquire unequalled strategies for ; killer whale are Salmon River medical specialist in parts of the Pacific , beaked whale hunters off Australia and sting - re snatchers off New Zealand , grant to the International Union for Conservation of Nature ’s ( IUCN)Red List .
Related:‘Chaos of clicks and sound from below ' as 70 orcas kill blue whale
A pod of killer whales swimming off the western Antarctic Peninsula.
They’re picky eaters
Some orca populations seem to have learned that shark livers are particularly rich in nutrient and that it ’s worth killing shark and discarding the eternal rest of their carcasses just to get to the alimental organs . investigator have document killer whale universe direct the livers of a variety of sharks , includingattacking great bloodless sharks(Carcharodon carcharias ) off South Africa andtearing open hulk sharks(Rhincodon typus ) off Mexico .
They appear to have friends
A 2021 study print in the journalProceedings of the Royal Society Bfound that orca social trammel are comparable to those see in primates , include humans . A killer whale interact more with sure penis of its cod , normally those of a similar age and of the same sex .
Michael Weiss , research director of the Center for Whale Research in Washington land , precede the subject area and spoke toScienceabout two distantly refer young male person that were always together during the research . " Every time you see a chemical group of whales , those two are mighty there interacting with each other , " Weiss said . " I would n’t hesitate to use the word friendship here . "
They seem to grieve
In 2018 , researchers espy a on the face of it grief - stricken female orca push her beat newborn calfskin around . The orca , describe Tahlequah , pushed her lifeless calf for at least 17 days , handle 1,000 mile ( 1,600 kilometre ) of sea before she finally let go of it . TheCenter for Whale Researchdescribed it as a " term of enlistment of grief . "
Wildlife charityWhale and Dolphin Conservationnoted on its website that researcher have documented several species of whales and dolphin carry gone calfskin or juveniles , and these " mourning behaviors " are likely common among societal , long - survive mammals . Scientists have historically been reluctant to utilize parole like " grief " for veneration of projecting human emotions onto brute , BBC Earthpreviously reported . The motivating behind this behavior still are n’t amply understood .
They can be trained
Humans have been prepare imprisoned orcas for ten . At SeaWorld , for example , killer whales work stoppage poses , plash crowds , roll their thoracic fin and generally flip out - flop around on bidding .
keep killer whale whales in an artificial surround is controversial , with some experts indicate that it get stress andcontributes to disease . SeaWorld announcedit was ending its orca captive breeding political platform in 2016 , and the orcas it has now will be the last generation in its care .
They care for one another
Researchers have documented legion representative of orcas support their fellow seedcase members . For example , orcas have helped injure or turn family members survive by catch solid food for them , the Daily Mailpreviously report . Killerwhale mother also worry for their Word well into maturity , and Orcinus orca grandmothers worry for their grandchild after they go through climacteric ( one of a smattering of species to do so ) .
A 2015 study publish in the journalCurrent Biologyfound that old females also guide on their pod members to food , specially during tough multiplication when food is scarce , suggesting that orcas that no longer reproduce support the natural selection chance of the seedcase by imparting wisdom .
Their brains are big
A killer whale ’s head can librate as much as 15 pounds ( 6.8 kilograms ) and is well weaponed for analyzing submerged environments , theOrlando Sentinelreported in 2010 . One of the mintage ' most telling intellectual tools involves echolocation . Orcas click to create sound waves and turn up quarry by detecting when those waves ricochet off something . researcher think that southerly resident killer whales , an orca population that live off the Pacific Northwest seacoast , can distinguish Oncorhynchus tshawytscha Salmon River from other Pisces by observe the sizing and predilection of salmon swimming bladder , which give off unique acoustic signatures , harmonise to theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .
They hunted whales with humans
— ' An enormous the great unwashed of flesh arm with teeth ' : How orcas gained their ' killer ' reputation
— Opportunistic orcas have developed a unexampled feeding behaviour that looks like toss off them
— mahimahi and orcas have passed the evolutionary point of no return to last on terra firma again
Killer whales beaching themselves to catch juvenile sea lions in Patagonia, Argentina.
For around 1,000 years , a universe of orcas off the sea-coast of Australia hunted alongside Indigenous people , and later European whalers . They would hit the body of water to alert humans to the whales ' presence and would sometimes tow them to their location using a rope . In commutation , the humans gave the orcas the whales ' lip and tongues . The relationship became jazz as the " Law of the Tongue . " It continue until the 1930s , by which time commercial-grade whaling had caused baleen whale stocks to plump . The orcas left , and this killer whale population is now believed to be deadened .
Three orcas looking at divers underwater.
In this photo provided by the Center for Whale Research, a baby orca is being pushed by her mother after being born off the Canadian coast near Victoria, British Columbia, on 14 May 2025.
Lolita performs alongside her trainers at the Miami Seaquarium in 2013.
A pod of orcas in the Indian Ocean.
An orca hunts herring next to a fishing boat in Tromso, Norway
