by Killer whales His caught on video that breaks down pieces of seaweed to rub each other and take care of each other, scientists announced on Monday, what they said is the first proof of marine mammals that make their own tools.
People are far from the only member of the animal kingdom that has mastered the use of tools. Chimpanzees Fashion -Sticks to fish on termites, Crows create twigs to catch larvae and waves elephants with branches.
The use of tools in the difficult studies in the world is rarer, but it is known that sea oths are taking open scales with rocks, while octopuses can make mobile homes from coconut scales.
A study published in the Current Biology magazine describes a new example of tool use by a critical endangered population of orcas.
Scientists have been following the murderous whales in the Southern Resident in the Salish Sea for more than 50 years, between the Canadian province of British Columbia and the state of Washington.
Rachel John, a master’s student at Exeter University in the United Kingdom, told a press conference that she noticed “something weird” for the first time while watching drone camera images last year.
The researchers went back on old images and were surprised to discover that this behavior is quite common and 30 examples documented for eight days.
One whale would use its teeth to break down a piece of Bull Kelp, which is strong but flexible like a garden hose.
It would then place the kelp between his body and the body of another whale, and they would rub him between them for a few minutes.
The couple forms an “s” shape to keep the seaweed between their bodies while rolling around.
“Skin maintenance behavior”
It is already known that whales fret by seaweed in a practice called ‘kelping’.
It is thought that they do this partially for fun, partly to use the seaweed to scrub their bodies to remove dead skin.
The international team of researchers called the new behavior ‘Allokelping’, which means Kelpen with a different whale.
“We assume that Allokelting is comparable to skin maintenance behavior shown by other cetaceans,” the researchers wrote.
They discovered that murderous whales with more dead skin more often participated in the activity, warned that it was a small sample.
Whales also tended to link to family members or others of a similar age, which suggests that the activity has a social element.
The scientists said it was the first known example of a marine mammal production of a tool.
Janet Mann, a biologist at the University of Georgetown who was not involved in the research, praised the research, but said it “went a bit too far” in some of his claims.
Bottlenosis dolphins that use marine sponges to trawligen for prey can also be considered as production tools, she told AFP.
And it could be said that other whales that are known to use nets of bubbles or plums of mud to hunt the use of tool use that improves several people, another who was first claimed in the newspaper, said Mann.
The authors of the study, however, say that Allokelting can be the “first case of non-human animals that manipulate a tool with the core of their bodies instead of an appendix.”
Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research and the main author of the study, said it seemed to be just the newest example of socially learned behavior in animals that could be considered ‘culture’.
But the number of murderous whales in the southern resident has fallen to just 73, which means that we could soon lose this unique cultural tradition, he warned.
“If they disappear, we will never get that again,” he said.
The whales mainly eat Chinook -of which the numbers are plummeted as a result of overfishing, climate change, habitat destruction and other forms of human interference.
The orcas and salmon are not only – submarine kelp forests are also destroyed as the ocean temperatures rise.
Unless something changes, the prospects for murderous whales of the southern resident is “very gloomy,” Weiss warned.
Earlier this year, an unusual spectacle with a POD orcas was also caught on video when spectators in Seattle were treated to the rare view of the Apex predators bird Close to the coast.
Killer whales have achieved the headlines in recent years for other reasons. Water sports enthusiasts in Europe have reported various cases of orcas ram in their ships In a pattern that surprised many marine experts. Sailors said they resorted to everything, from sand in the water to fireworks Blast thrash metal music In attempts to ward off the advancing predators.
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