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Posted on 08/05/2025 8:01:43 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Footage from the BBC's new nature series "Parenthood" shows orcas practicing an important blue whale-hunting technique on each other.
Orca moms teach their young how to pretend-drown each other, first-of-its-kind footage shows. The brutal training session teaches orcas the skills needed to kill the largest animal that has ever lived.
In the video, a young orca (Orcinus orca) pretends to be prey, letting the rest of the pod surround it and submerge its blowhole to prevent it from breathing. Members of the pod practice holding the young orca's head under the water for a while before releasing it.
Later in the clip, the pod applies this technique while hunting a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). The orcas appear to catch the whale off guard, giving them an advantage in what would otherwise be an unequal fight with the enormous whale. They crowd around the whale's head and submerge its blowhole, but it's unclear from the footage whether they succeed in killing the giant mammal.
While researchers already knew that orcas can kill whales by drowning them, "this practice-hunting behaviour has never been filmed before," a spokeswoman for the BBC, which filmed the footage for its new nature series "Parenthood," told The Times.
The clip is narrated by British biologist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. "These orca need to be on top of their game," Attenborough explains in the footage. "They hunt the largest animals that have ever lived: blue whales."
Filmmakers used specialized underwater stabilizing devices called gimbals and tow cameras to capture the scene off the coast of Bremer Bay in Western Australia. "This technology allowed the crew to travel at the same speed as the orca hunting pack and provided new insights into their behaviour," the BBC spokeswoman told The Times.
Orcas pretend to drown one of their own
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
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Used to be called playing in the pool with my brothers.
All predators practice their killing skills by playing rough with litter mates.
Marco.
Even lawyers?
Polo
Where is liberal outrage over Orcan waterboarding?
Orcas never fail to amaze me. We underestimate their intelligence.
Waterboarding wales…
I’ve seen them playing ‘frisbee’ with seals out of Moss Landing.
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