Killer Whale Podcast

Video

Here’s a chilly blast from your host’s past: See video of Ari from his field biologist days, studying killer whales in Norway.

Facts

Orcas are an example of evolution in action. A 2010 paper by Andrew Foote of the Natural History Museum of Denmark shows that orcas in Antarctic waters are diverging into two separate species, one feeding on seals and a smaller, dwarf species feeding on fish. 

Killer whale communication, a language of whistles and clicks, varies from pod to pod much like dialects in human language.

Orcas hear through bones in the lower jaw called the auditory bulla.

These social hunters prey on a wide variety of marine species besides seals and fish, including dolphins, turtles, birds, and sea otters. Long-lived with large brains, orcas are among those animal societies that teach their young to hunt. Watch a dramatic video of a pod of orcas teaching their young a unique seal-hunting strategy.

Participate:

Have you seen killer whales in the wild on a cruise to Alaska or Norway? Share your images and video by uploading them to the EOL Flickr Group.

Participate in citizen science from your desk! Learn to recognize orca vocalizations, then monitor underwater microphones from the orcasound.net website, and email researchers when you hear an orca. You’ll be contributing to an ongoing SeaSound Remote Sensing Network.