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Killer whales groom each other with pieces of kelp

98 points by noleary 1y ago

metalman 1y ago
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 https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/marine-animals/killer-whales-offer-food-to-humans https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/marine-animals... https://www.livescience.com/animals/orcas/wild-orcas-offer-humans-food-could-they-be-trying-to-make-friends-or-manipulate-us https://www.livescience.com/animals/orcas/wild-orcas-offer-h...
- jojobas 1y ago
  Australian whalers "hired" orcas to help round up whales and paid in lips/whatever other parts orcas liked most. https://killerwhalemuseum.com.au/old-tom/ https://killerwhalemuseum.com.au/old-tom/
  - arethuza 1y ago
    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...
    - zabzonk 1y ago
      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 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/y8iipFTBanc
      - adrian_b 1y ago
        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.
        zabzonk 1y ago
        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.
        adrian_b 1y ago
        There is a strong correlation between the behavior an animal will exhibit against a human and the behavior it will exhibit against other animals of its own species. The animals which do not tolerate other animals of their own species and which will attack them and fight with them are also very likely to attack humans when they believe that humans have invaded their personal space. For example, an adult bear will never be truly friendly with a human, even with a human that has raised it as a cub, because adult bears are never friendly with other bears, but they attack any intruders. On the other hand, a wolf raised by a human can become tame and attached to the human, like a wild wolf would behave towards its real parents. Similarly, male sperm whales fight viciously with any other male sperm whales and they also do not hesitate to attack any boats with humans that harass them. AFAIK, intra-specific fighting is not frequent among orcas, but they are used to have good relations between them, even with some from different pods. This may explain their lack of aggressivity against humans, as long as they are not perceived as a possible prey.
  - gpderetta 1y ago
    More on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_Sou... I'm not sure it is so much the humans hiring the whales as opposed of the whales hiring the humans :D
- perrygeo 1y ago
  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.
  - swores 1y ago
    Isn't the idea of brain size being a useful proxy for intelligence quite outdated? Partly because there are animals with larger brains which we now know are not very intelligent, with no assumptions needed, and partly because some of the most intelligent non-primate animals that we know of actually have very small brains - like crows and other birds in the corvid family.
    - xeonmc 1y ago
      It's as they say -- Don't judge a chip by its die size.
    - adrian_b 1y ago
      While brain size is not a certain sign of intelligence, it is correlated with intelligence, especially when the comparison is done between more closely related animals, which have similar brain structures. The largest brains belong to elephants and cetaceans, and both are among the most intelligent animals. However comparing their brain size to that of primates would not provide useful information, because for both elephants and cetaceans large parts of their brains are dedicated to the control of various functions of their large bodies that we do not consider as relevant for "intelligence", including things like trunk control and echolocation.
- yard2010 1y ago
  Humans think they are whale food is just the same as the cat in our yard that sure I'm gonna make a goulash from him instead of serving him some.
  - swores 1y ago
    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 https://pastebin.com/Y11P8ETs - but I think asking you to explain what you meant more clearly is enough for here :)
    - dpassens 1y ago
      GP's comment reads reasonably clear to me: humans fearing orcas might eat them are about as rational as the cat visiting GP's garden, which also seems to be convinced GP wants to harm rather than feed it.
      - swores 1y ago
        Ah, OK that does now make sense to me, thanks. I think I didn't manage to see that meaning because the comment it was replying to had nothing to do with humans thinking orcas want to eat them, it was about orcas bringing food (like dead fish) to give to the humans. So more like a pet cat bringing a dead mouse to its owner than a cat in the garden fearing that the human wants to eat it?
        shayway 1y ago
        For what it's worth I was lost too. Even with the explanation it took a few minutes to fully parse.
      - mr_toad 1y ago
        People do, or have eaten cats, mainly when they’re starving. I’m not sure I’d want to be in the water with a starving Orca.
- subjectsigma 1y ago
  I watched the video in the first link and it’s a pretty extreme stretch to say it was “offering food” to the human holding the camera. There was barely any indication it saw the person. The second video looked significantly more promising, however the video cuts away before we can actually see what the whale does. Unless I watch a third video and start seeing some very clear dog-playing-fetch-like behavior, I’m marking this one as highly implausible.
  - ludicrousdispla 1y ago
    not Orcas, but another apex predator offering food... >> https://roaring.earth/feed-photographer/ https://roaring.earth/feed-photographer/
wiether 1y ago
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.
- raincole 1y ago
  Especially when the alternative is so easy to spell and pronounce...
- boffinAudio 1y ago
  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 ..
- 0x737368 1y ago
  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.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- amelius 1y ago
  https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/06/orca-killer-whale-attacking-boats/674438/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/06/orca-kil... > 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.
  - _Algernon_ 1y ago
    Cats of the sea. Is them attacking luxury yachts the equivalent of my cat knocking down glasses of water?
robaato 1y ago
Nice article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/30/orca-kelp-massage-grooming https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/30/orca-k... These supposedly serious cetaceans have been spotted massaging each other with kelp stalks. This is the sort of performative nonsense you’d expect from dolphins
- swores 1y ago
  Killer Whales, aka Orcas, actually are dolphins! And they got their name as a mistranslation into English - if I remember correctly they were originally named in Spanish as "killers of whales" or "whale killers", because they do that
  - Nunanol 1y ago
    [dead]
  - ceph_ 1y ago
    All dolphins are whales. Not all whales are dolphins. It's a square / rectangle situation. Orcas are indeed dolphins, and also whales.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    > if I remember correctly they were originally named in Spanish as "killers of whales" or "whale killers", because they do that Wiktionary supports that etymology, and it is generally a high-quality source for etymology, but it's troubling that this one isn't cited.
- libraryofbabel 1y ago
  My absolute favorite Orca culture story (yes they have transmissible culture!) is the “salmon hat craze,” where the Orcas carry dead salmon around on their heads, apparently just for fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_hat When you’re the apex predator of the world’s oceans you can get away with all sorts of silly nonsense!
bmitc 1y ago
Title should be changed from "Killer whales" to "Orcas".
fuzzfactor 1y ago
>Killer whales groom each other If they don't do it, who will?
- defrost 1y ago
  Other creatures in the sea, perhaps. Interspecies grooming is a thing, and "grooming" or at least cleaning is a side benefit from 'parasites' that clean food from predators, including from between their teeth (eg: Docker fish cleaning shark teeth).

98 points by noleary 1y ago

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 https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/marine-animals/killer-whales-offer-food-to-humans https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/marine-animals... https://www.livescience.com/animals/orcas/wild-orcas-offer-humans-food-could-they-be-trying-to-make-friends-or-manipulate-us https://www.livescience.com/animals/orcas/wild-orcas-offer-h...

jojobas 1y ago
Australian whalers "hired" orcas to help round up whales and paid in lips/whatever other parts orcas liked most. https://killerwhalemuseum.com.au/old-tom/ https://killerwhalemuseum.com.au/old-tom/
- arethuza 1y ago
  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...
  - zabzonk 1y ago
    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 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/y8iipFTBanc
    - adrian_b 1y ago
      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.
      - zabzonk 1y ago
        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.
        adrian_b 1y ago
        There is a strong correlation between the behavior an animal will exhibit against a human and the behavior it will exhibit against other animals of its own species. The animals which do not tolerate other animals of their own species and which will attack them and fight with them are also very likely to attack humans when they believe that humans have invaded their personal space. For example, an adult bear will never be truly friendly with a human, even with a human that has raised it as a cub, because adult bears are never friendly with other bears, but they attack any intruders. On the other hand, a wolf raised by a human can become tame and attached to the human, like a wild wolf would behave towards its real parents. Similarly, male sperm whales fight viciously with any other male sperm whales and they also do not hesitate to attack any boats with humans that harass them. AFAIK, intra-specific fighting is not frequent among orcas, but they are used to have good relations between them, even with some from different pods. This may explain their lack of aggressivity against humans, as long as they are not perceived as a possible prey.
- gpderetta 1y ago
  More on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_Sou... I'm not sure it is so much the humans hiring the whales as opposed of the whales hiring the humans :D
perrygeo 1y ago
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.
- swores 1y ago
  Isn't the idea of brain size being a useful proxy for intelligence quite outdated? Partly because there are animals with larger brains which we now know are not very intelligent, with no assumptions needed, and partly because some of the most intelligent non-primate animals that we know of actually have very small brains - like crows and other birds in the corvid family.
  - xeonmc 1y ago
    It's as they say -- Don't judge a chip by its die size.
  - adrian_b 1y ago
    While brain size is not a certain sign of intelligence, it is correlated with intelligence, especially when the comparison is done between more closely related animals, which have similar brain structures. The largest brains belong to elephants and cetaceans, and both are among the most intelligent animals. However comparing their brain size to that of primates would not provide useful information, because for both elephants and cetaceans large parts of their brains are dedicated to the control of various functions of their large bodies that we do not consider as relevant for "intelligence", including things like trunk control and echolocation.
yard2010 1y ago
Humans think they are whale food is just the same as the cat in our yard that sure I'm gonna make a goulash from him instead of serving him some.
- swores 1y ago
  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 https://pastebin.com/Y11P8ETs - but I think asking you to explain what you meant more clearly is enough for here :)
  - dpassens 1y ago
    GP's comment reads reasonably clear to me: humans fearing orcas might eat them are about as rational as the cat visiting GP's garden, which also seems to be convinced GP wants to harm rather than feed it.
    - swores 1y ago
      Ah, OK that does now make sense to me, thanks. I think I didn't manage to see that meaning because the comment it was replying to had nothing to do with humans thinking orcas want to eat them, it was about orcas bringing food (like dead fish) to give to the humans. So more like a pet cat bringing a dead mouse to its owner than a cat in the garden fearing that the human wants to eat it?
      - shayway 1y ago
        For what it's worth I was lost too. Even with the explanation it took a few minutes to fully parse.
    - mr_toad 1y ago
      People do, or have eaten cats, mainly when they’re starving. I’m not sure I’d want to be in the water with a starving Orca.
subjectsigma 1y ago
I watched the video in the first link and it’s a pretty extreme stretch to say it was “offering food” to the human holding the camera. There was barely any indication it saw the person. The second video looked significantly more promising, however the video cuts away before we can actually see what the whale does. Unless I watch a third video and start seeing some very clear dog-playing-fetch-like behavior, I’m marking this one as highly implausible.
- ludicrousdispla 1y ago
  not Orcas, but another apex predator offering food... >> https://roaring.earth/feed-photographer/ https://roaring.earth/feed-photographer/

wiether 1y ago

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.

raincole 1y ago
Especially when the alternative is so easy to spell and pronounce...
boffinAudio 1y ago
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 ..
0x737368 1y ago
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.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
amelius 1y ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/06/orca-killer-whale-attacking-boats/674438/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/06/orca-kil... > 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.
- _Algernon_ 1y ago
  Cats of the sea. Is them attacking luxury yachts the equivalent of my cat knocking down glasses of water?

robaato 1y ago

Nice article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/30/orca-kelp-massage-grooming https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/30/orca-k... These supposedly serious cetaceans have been spotted massaging each other with kelp stalks. This is the sort of performative nonsense you’d expect from dolphins

swores 1y ago
Killer Whales, aka Orcas, actually are dolphins! And they got their name as a mistranslation into English - if I remember correctly they were originally named in Spanish as "killers of whales" or "whale killers", because they do that
- Nunanol 1y ago
  [dead]
- ceph_ 1y ago
  All dolphins are whales. Not all whales are dolphins. It's a square / rectangle situation. Orcas are indeed dolphins, and also whales.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > if I remember correctly they were originally named in Spanish as "killers of whales" or "whale killers", because they do that Wiktionary supports that etymology, and it is generally a high-quality source for etymology, but it's troubling that this one isn't cited.
libraryofbabel 1y ago
My absolute favorite Orca culture story (yes they have transmissible culture!) is the “salmon hat craze,” where the Orcas carry dead salmon around on their heads, apparently just for fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_hat When you’re the apex predator of the world’s oceans you can get away with all sorts of silly nonsense!

bmitc 1y ago

Title should be changed from "Killer whales" to "Orcas".

fuzzfactor 1y ago

>Killer whales groom each other If they don't do it, who will?

defrost 1y ago
Other creatures in the sea, perhaps. Interspecies grooming is a thing, and "grooming" or at least cleaning is a side benefit from 'parasites' that clean food from predators, including from between their teeth (eg: Docker fish cleaning shark teeth).