Orcas whale facts, Are the Killer whales dangerous to humans?

Killer whales or Orcas are carnivorous marine mammals of the orchinus genus which belongs to the delfinody family of the arctiodectilla order.

Killer whale Orcas

Killer whales live in the waters of every ocean in the world but they are less common in the tropics and are more common in cold and temperate latitudes. The killer whales are very beautiful and you definitely wouldn’t expect them to be dangerous but they’re actually one of the most powerful predators in the ocean. They have a strong build a large but short and flathead and a large mouth with powerful chewing muscles that make for a strong bite.

They have 44 big teeth in their mouth each about 13 centimeters long. The predator’s vision is weak as is the case with many inhabitants of the sea but it does have an excellent hearing because of this skill. This animal detects its prey even at great depths the organ on the forehead is used by the killer whale as sonar and is responsible for recognizing sounds.

Orcas are distinctive because of their black and white coloration pattern the shape and color of their spots are mostly individuals which give people the ability to distinguish predators from each other. The killer whale is very voracious it eats 50 to 100 kilograms of food per day. When speaking about killer whales one should keep in mind that they are divided into resident and transient.

The first kind is more peaceful and eats mainly fish the second is more bloodthirsty and hunts marine mammals which are how it got its name. Orcas don’t mind feeding on penguins and seals in order to get them, they need to work in teams. They create waves to wash their still living food into the water or break on the ice flow.

Is Killer whale friendly?

It’s amazing but it actually looks like the orcas simply enjoy killing. They push the seal from one side of the flow so it goes into killer whale mount on the opposite side of the flow no selfish acts here. They slowly swim around the ice flow where the poor seal found its last refuge they raise their heads out of the water. As if making sure that the prey is not making any attempts to hide orcas roll in large waves trying to wash the seal off the ice.

The seal nearly escaping looking at the killer whale’s hunt. It’s hard not to admire how smooth and calm they are when one of them can’t get the prey the others come to its aid. The killer whales decided not to spend all day looking for food and attack. The bowhead whale instead whale is much larger than the attackers but its size is unlikely to help him as there are more of them and they are faster nonetheless.

All the attempts of the Orcas to bite it were unsuccessful their bites weren’t strong enough and finally the most spectacular shots of killer whales attacking a gray whale. Orcas being much more fierce and attacking quicker and more aggressively. They rush at the gray whale with great speed thrusting their jaws into it but as it turns out.

There are two whales one large and one small the killer whales attack both of them and no matter how hard the gray whales try to get away. The Orcas are faster and stronger it’s not even a battle but rather a show of superiority of predators over their food. Killer whales hunt fish in groups of five to fifteen individuals moving in even lines at a speed of five kilometers per hour.

They never break the formation during the hunt, orcas are surprisingly quiet their attack is so well coordinated that each predator knows exactly what their part is orcas drive a shoal of fish to the shore or force it into a tight ball by surrounding it from all sides. They then take turns diving inside the ball where they stun or kill the prey by slapping it with their tails.

It’s not surprising that their actions are so well coordinated since parents teach baby orcas hunting from an early age. It doesn’t mean that killer whales are cruel or evil creatures. It’s just their nature it’s how they survive for killer whales not all but for the pacific fish-eating kind a matriarchal family is characteristic.

Killer whale groups are based in mature lines orcas live for a long time female can live for up to 90 years. So there are often several generations in a group a female matriarch her children the children of her daughters that is grandchildren and even great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. It’s interesting that not only females but also males remain in the maternal family. They don’t mate with their relatives but rather search for a partner when they meet other groups.

Communication of Orcas

But they still return to their mother so the males living in a family aren’t fathers but sons brothers and uncles while their children live in other families and they may never get to orcas communicate with each other in a rather peculiar language, which consists of a specific number and type of repetitive sounds that remain unchanged over a long period.

Interestingly each group has its own language each killer whale family has its own special dialect a set of calls unlike most other mammals such as cats and dogs for which sounds are innate or transmitted genetically. Killer whale dialects are transmitted through learning like languages in humans for example if a kitten grows up among dogs and never hears a single feline sound.

It will still meow like a cat it won’t bark like a dog but the killer whale calf learns to make exactly the same sound that the members of his family make.

The orca’s reproduction process is studied very little it’s known that sexual maturity is reached at the age of 12 to 14 years and the period between births is about three years. They avoid inbreeding, they only mate when several groups come together for example for hunting despite the fact that many people are used to considering the largest Delfino dies to be deadly for humans.

Are they dangerous to humans?

It is not an entirely true impression of killer whales. There are no records of orcas ever eating people, if they were to attack a person they would probably succeed but being highly developed creatures. Orcas understand the dangers that humans pose perhaps not even in terms of power but rather their mental superiority. Thus they virtually never attack people in the past 20 years there was only one known incident of a killer whale attacking a surfer.

The surfer survived but he did lose his leg unfortunately people are much more dangerous for killer whales as they catch them for fun and not for survival. The killer whale shows where orcas are the featured stars have become very popular predators are intelligent. They train well and oddly enough when in captivity.

They’re quite peaceful even in relation to animals which they usually would hunt. In the wild captivity is extremely bad for orcas. They develop various diseases because of their passive lifestyle they become obese and their dorsal fins bend to one side in males.