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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 5, 2019 20:54:04 GMT 5
Posts moved from megalodon vs. Livyatan to here. I also decided to rename the topic and make it somewhat broader. Discuss further here if you want.
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Post by prehistorican on Oct 6, 2019 8:46:50 GMT 5
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve at least acknowledged this account (and other, even older, accounts listed in that appendix of small numbers of or single orcas successfully killing giant whales) before and addressed it. Admittedly on another forum and not this one (well, not that I remember at least). Aside from the pre-1925 account of 5 orcas killing an adult blue whale, there’s a record of 2 orcas killing one fin whale...that dates back to 1908. There’s a record of one orca killing a humpback (I’m going to presume the humpback was an adult)...that dates back to 1830. And a report of 3 orcas attacking and mortally wounding a bowhead...that dates back to the 1800s (1898?). I'm not going to completely discount these, but yeah, skepticism definitely warranted. Any other reports I’m missing? Press X to doubt. xxxxxxxxx. The media called a 15m fin whale an “adult” when it reality it would weigh 30-40 tonnes at most maybe even less, the maximum size is far far larger though. People can easily mistake a 15-18m blue whale as an adult when in reality it is a subadult or juvenile. |
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Post by prehistorican on Oct 6, 2019 21:32:32 GMT 5
Also a note on orca pod size, there definitely IS a reason why transients do not congregate in large clans all the time. When we talk about superpods it is just a composite of average size pods and they only do this on special occasions. There definitely IS a reason why there is an average of 3-4 transient orcas (a rule of thumb it seems) and not 8-10 pr more/superpod constantly. If I had to guess it is because their prey doesn’t need a large superpod to kill it( something of their own size) or the sheer amount of food to sustain a superpod in a local region for an extended period of time.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Oct 7, 2019 6:27:50 GMT 5
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Post by sam1 on Oct 8, 2019 15:49:45 GMT 5
I bet the ramming the ribcage is done specifically in order to make breathing more difficult and painful. What a calculated killers. |
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Post by theropod on Oct 10, 2019 4:15:35 GMT 5
Yes, a lot of orca predation technique on large animals has to do with restricting respiration of their prey, whether it’s just preventing a whale from surfacing, actively covering the blowhole or pushing the head down, restraining it under water in a group, or ramming it, or in the case of sharks, using tonic immobility and gripping them to immobilize them. In a funny way, that makes them sort of the big cat analogues of the marine realm.
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