an orca comin' trough!
Hello again amigos, today I'll talk about my favorite animal in this whole universe. O.R.C.A get that? yeas an orca. what II love about this animal is, this is a killing whale. not the fact that i liked the topic of killing, definitely not. I loved this animal cuz it could be terrifying and cute at the same time. when it hunts its prey they're like too fierce even a lion couldn't catch up, but their figure are so adorable. here's facts about them!
1. The Scientific Name of the Killer Whale Is Orcinus orca.
Two mammal-eating “transient” killer whales photographed off the south side of Unimak Island, eastern Aleutian Islands, Alaska.
This is why the killer whale is sometimes called an “orca whale” or simply an “orca”. Orcinus is derived from the name Orcus, one of the Roman gods of the netherworld who punished evildoers — a fitting name for the ocean’s most fearsome predator. Orca, on the other hand, means “barrel-shaped”, referring to the round shape of the killer whale.
Why is it called a killer whale? The killer whale was once called “whale killer” by sailors who saw it attacking whales. Over time, the name was reversed.
The killer whale is also known as sword whale, assassin whale and blackfish.
2. The Killer Whale Is Not a Whale.
Orca (Orcinus orca) in City and Borough of Haines, Alaska, United States. Photo by Christopher Michel cc2.0
The killer whale is not a fish. It is a marine mammal. However, it is not a whale. It is in fact a dolphin, and the largest dolphin to boot.
3. The Largest Killer Whale Ever Caught Was 32 Feet Long.
That’s almost as long as a school bus! It weighed 22,000 pounds, or 11 tons (9979 kilograms) — as heavy as an African elephant.
Normally, killer whales are 16 to 30 feet (4.9 to 9.1 meters) long and can weigh from 3 to 6 tons (2722 to 5443 kilograms). Males are larger than females.
At birth, killer whales are already about 8 feet (2.4 meters) long and weigh 400 pounds (181 kilograms) — roughly as heavy as three adult humans.
Because of the killer whale’s size, it is not preyed on by any other creature in the ocean. It is an apex predator — at the top of the food chain — and the largest apex predator on Earth. Its size means a great amount of strength, which the killer whale uses in order to catch prey.
4. Killer Whales Eat Sharks.
Killer whales are carnivores. They eat fish, including great white sharks and rays, squid, crabs, lobsters, seals, sea lions, dugongs, sea birds, penguins, sea turtles and of course, whales, including baby sperm whales and baby blue whales. They also eat moose swimming in the ocean and according to scientists, will eat polar bears if the opportunity comes up!
How do killer whales catch sharks and rays without getting bitten? They grab them and prevent them from moving. When sharks and rays cannot move, they cannot breathe and eventually, they die from suffocation.
As for seals, sea lions and penguins, killer whales can tip the ice floe they are on, or cause waves to crash down on the ice, driving these creatures into the water. They can also jump out of the water or push themselves onto the shore to catch birds.
Killer whales hunt in groups, so they have a high hunting success rate.
5. Killer Whales Cannot Smell.
Killer whales use echolocation and rely on auditory information to capture prey. Killer whales do not have smelling organs or a lobe of the brain dedicated to smelling, so it is believed that they cannot smell. They do, however, have good senses of sight and hearing. They can hear better than dogs and even bats. Using this excellent sense of hearing, killer whales practice echolocation. This means that killer whales produce sounds and then listen to the echoes. In this way, they can tell if objects or other animals are near or far, and just exactly how near or far.
6. Killer Whales Have Their Own Language.
The language of killer whales is one of the most complex in the animal kingdom. They produce high-pitched whistles, pulsed calls and low-frequency pops. They can even make clapping sounds with their jaws. The whistles are used for close-range or private communication, while the pulsed calls are used for long-range communication. Members of the same pod make the same calls, which the young ones learn from their mothers.
Aside from communicating through sound, killer whales communicate through touch and through various gestures such as head-butting and slapping their fins.
some intermezo;I thought they knew about the morse code or like maybe hexa decimals? who knows.
7. Killer Whales Can Sleep with One Eye Open.
Like other dolphins, killer whales cannot completely go to sleep, because they have to go up to the surface to breathe every now and then. Instead, they sleep with just half of their brains. If a killer whale’s left eye is open, that means the right side of its brain is awake and the other asleep, and vice versa. "
I wonder if they have insomnia.
8. There Is No Record of a Wild Killer Whale Ever Attacking a Human.
Fearsome as they are, no killer whale has been known to attack, much less eat, humans in the wild. In captivity, it is a different story. Several trainers and marine park employees have been attacked by killer whales, some of them killed. However, scientists claim that this is due to stress on the killer whale’s part. After all, killer whales are kept in tanks which, however big, are still small compared to the ocean, and are separated from the other members of their pod, sometimes even from their young.
The title of most deadly killer whale belongs to Tilikum, who killed three different trainers in 1991, 1999 and 2010.
SEE PEOPLE? =)
Shocking isn't it, a wild killer whale does not attack humans. but what I'm sad is, people are using them for some stupid circus or captivity and do you know how bad it made them? they can't live freely anymore. being a marionette to some people who are thirsty to money. I've lost respect here.
here's the fact.
A 3-month-old orca calf named Kyara died this past weekend, possibly from pneumonia, at SeaWorld San Antonio. This isn't the first occasion of a killer whale dying in captivity.
Dozens of other captive killer whales, including the SeaWorld orca named Tilikum, who was made famous in the documentary "Blackfish," have also died from bacterial infections.
According to SeaWorld’s press statement, Kyara's death, which is still being investigated, was not the result of living in captivity. But some experts in marine mammal research say that the living conditions contribute to disease. [Photos: Orcas Are Chowing Down on Great-White-Shark Organs]
"I think pneumonia is a fairly common cause of death because they are living in a constant state of low-level stress," Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist at the advocacy organization Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, D.C., told Live Science
Stress in captivity
Captive killer whales are held in concrete tanks about 1/10,000th of 1 percent the size of their natural habitat and mothers give birth without their crucial social network — situations that can cause low levels of stress and make them susceptible to disease, she said.
"It's harder to be a mother orca in captivity," Rose told Live Science.
In the wild, orca calves are raised by not just the mother, but also by others in the pod. In captivity, killer whales are rarely with other family members. Nursing is also an issue, said Rose. Orca calves don't suckle like other mammals, but rather hold their mouths over the mother's teat while she squirts milk as she swims. The small tank makes swimming and nursing difficult for both mother and calf, said Rose, and that can cause stress. [How Tilikum the Orca Changed the Conversation About Animals in Captivity]
According to Whales and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), which has been tracking captive killer whale births and deaths for 30 years, at least 164 killer whales have died in captivity worldwide, 46 of those deaths occurring at SeaWorld-owned facilities — a number that doesn't include at least 30 miscarried and still-born calvesin captivity.
"Pneumonia, along with septicemia are the two most common causes of death in captive orcas," Rob Lott, policy manager at WDC, told Live Science.
Septicemia is a bacterial infection that enters the bloodstream and can affect the lungs or skin.
In 2015, marine biologist John Jett, a former SeaWorld trainer, who is now a visiting research professor at Stetson University, and Jeff Ventre, a board certified physiatrist, published a paper showing that captive orcas in the United States survived about 12 years.
But there are no specific research studies that say why, said Rose. "There is a paucity of research on cetaceans in captivity."
According to Rose, if scientists at SeaWorld are studying the effects of captivity on killer whales, they are not making the research available for review by other scientists. They also do not allow outside researchers to study why the marine mammals grow ill.
"Access to the animals is on guard," she said.
After Kyara's death, SeaWorld said in its press statement that, "pneumonia has been identified as the most common cause of mortality and illness in whales and dolphins, both in the wild and in zoological facilities."
How wild orcas fare
Whether this is the case for wild orcas is not certain, said Joseph Gaydos, science director of SeaDoc Society in Eastsound, Washington, and a veterinarian at the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, who studies diseases in wildlife, including orca. Not much is known about the diseases that occur in wild killer whales and whether or not pneumonia is the most common cause of death, he told Live Science. Few, if any, dead killer whales wash up on shore, he said.
Only about about one in five dead orca from the endangered southern resident killer whales, which live off the coast of Oregon, Washington and Vancouver Island, wash up on shore. Of the northern resident killer whales, which live in the Pacific from mid-Vancouver Island to Southeastern Alaska up through the Queen Charlotte Islands, researchers might find one in a 100 dead bodies.
Scientists are still in the early days of trying to figure out what types of diseases hit wild killer whales and what causes them, Gaydos said. So far, he and his team have found orcas can contract bacteria such as species in the Brucellagenus transmitted by ingesting contaminated food; Edwardsiella tarda, which can lead to Edwardsiella septicemia; cetacean pox virus, a skin disease; salmonella; and pneumonia.
Gaydos and his team are currently working on describing research on the prevalence of these diseases in wild orcas.
But there is much more to learn. Scientists do not understand how killer whale health is impacted by human contaminants, such as plastics or persistent organic pollutantsthat remain in the marine ecosystem for years.
Gaydos said he is also collaborating with Hendrik Nollens, senior staff veterinarian at SeaWorld San Diego, to better understand the skin diseases found in killer whales and to develop a medical response for any sick killer whales found in the wild.
There are only 78 members left in the southern resident killer whale population and keeping them healthy may require medical interventions in the future.
Kyara was the last killer whale born into captivity, since SeaWorld announced in March 2016, that it would end its captive breeding program.
Of the 61 killer whales in captivity around the world, SeaWorld currently has 22, according to WDC. Kyara's grandmother, Kasatka, was captured from the wild in Iceland on Oct. 26, 1978, at under 2 years of age, and is also being treated for a chronic bacterial respiratory infection, according to SeaWorld.
Please let animals in the wild be wild and free. Let them be with their family, friends and so. Don't let your dumb ambitious thought of money hunt your smart brain down.
_yas.
Comments
Post a Comment