Orcas’ fondness for offering to share their prey-catches with humans, and for massaging each other with kelp fronds was described earlier this year on Divernet, following the passing of what seemed to be another killer whale craze for wearing dead salmon as hats.
Now added to the catalogue of intriguing killer-whale behaviour is prolonged kissing, after a pair of wild orcas were spotted by citizen-scientist snorkellers nibbling each other’s tongues repeatedly for almost two minutes.
This activity, never recorded before in the wild, was observed in northern Norway’s Kvænangen fjords. It is described in a new study, A Kiss From The Wild: Tongue Nibbling In Free-Ranging Killer Whales (Orcinus orca), by marine scientist Javier Almunia of Loro Parque Fundación in Spain and his colleagues.
A small group of snorkellers had entered the water from their boat and approached the orcas slowly from the side, floating in a passive, horizontal position once in the water to avoid disturbing the orcas, which were moving slowly but not feeding at the time.
The interaction took place between two adult orcas diving 10-15m beneath snorkellers Michael and Allison Kelly Estevez, who caught the activity on GoPro.
Wild beluga whales have been known to indulge in similar interactions, described as a “gentle tongue bites” and initiated mainly by immature animals.
There were no signs of aggression among the orcas, and the behaviour is thought either to reinforce social bonding among developing juveniles or to be another form of grooming – or even a game trend in a particular population, as the salmon-hats craze had been. The research is published in Oceans.
Killer match in the Scilly Isles
Meanwhile two orcas who were not engaged in any surprising behaviour were however in an unexpected location recently – observed swimming off the Isles of Scilly. This was the first confirmed record of an Iberian population in Cornish waters, and the first sighting of any orcas in these waters for decades. They were seen near Pol Bank, south-west of the Bishop Rock Lighthouse.
This is thought to be another sign of warming British coastal waters, along with an increase in sightings of humpback whales, dolphins, jellyfish and octopuses. The photo ID was made by Sarah Matthews of Dolphin Zone.
