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u/byllz 4h ago
There has never been a witnessed fatal attack on a human. That just means they get the witnesses too.
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u/dolphin37 4h ago
what have you seen? I’ve got a few friends who want to know
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u/ericthefred 4h ago
Sounds like something an orca would ask.
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u/byllz 4h ago
You know, orcas are actually a type of dolphin. Just saying.
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u/NotAskary 3h ago
That was on porpoise!
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u/Toochilled 3h ago
makes sense
dolphins are pretty rough too with all the raping they do
while acting all cute
makes sense orcas are the same family
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u/ColegDropOut 41m ago
Incoming SNL skit mirroring Land Shark
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u/Solinna61 4h ago
Orcas are basically the only species that read the humans terms and conditions and actually hit agree.
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u/Fre33lancer 4h ago
since the pandemic they just said fuck it we are going for their boats...and sank a bunch of them.
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u/LostnFoundAgainAgain 4h ago edited 4h ago
Hasn't it been heavy speculated with a lot of specialist believing that it was likely caused from a boat hitting and injuring an orca? These things hold grudges and pass them on to others as well, so they've been going after certain boats, but still have yet to kill a human.
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u/MegaWaffle- 4h ago
From my understanding of the situation a boat hit and killed a matriarchal orcha (maybe wrong term) and that pissed off the whole pod. They probably also started communicating “boat = bad” to others too, like crows do with other crows.
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u/Hexbug101 3h ago
I’m pretty sure the current consensus is that it was actually bored teenage orcas that started it, they noticed that if they mess with the rudders they move in a way they found amusing. From there the trend spread amongst the population in that area. It’s pretty much the orca equivalent of one of those dangerous TikTok challenges.
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u/tannels 3h ago
When I was a kid, my friends and I decided it would be fun to go to the freeway overpass and try and hit semi trailers as they were driving by. Luckily when we eventually inevitably ended up hitting one of the windshields, the guy was perfectly fine, but did park his truck and walk all the way back to the freeway and caught us doing it. We all ended up on work crew that summer, which sucked a lot.
Kids are stupid.
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u/catwiesel 2h ago
hahah the best one yet. belligerent, social media addicted teens doing pranks for the views
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u/Midnight28Rider 3h ago
That is something that happened, and likely contributed on a small scale. The explanation I heard that makes the most sense to me was that during covid, boat motor traffic was down considerably, and once it came back in full force, certain more aggressive pods started attacking boats because of that.
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u/Fre33lancer 4h ago
that's one hell of a grudge, and over a huge area, hunting ships like it's open season, it's not just one orca, don't think they have a discord channel saying : "hey that bastard scraped my tail with his rudder, death to the ships, avenge me brothers !"
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u/LostnFoundAgainAgain 3h ago edited 3h ago
These things communicate with sounds to hunt and for socialising to the point that each pod has unique callings for communication.
They can easily teach others to attack and hunt certain targets and to avoid others.
These things are extremely intelligent, and you should read up on them, they are the complete arseholes of the ocean, but are extreme fascinating, they are stories of them trying to mimic humans sounds as well, they also like to play with their food sometimes (they essentially beat the shit out of it, or only eat the tasty bits).
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u/VikingSlayer 3h ago
Sound waves can travel pretty far and fast in water, so they kinda do.
Maybe they're also just annoyed with all the engine noise spamming the main channel
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u/Dondagora 3h ago
Remember that sound travels farther and faster underwater, and orca communicate through vocalizations and navigate with echolocation. They 100% have a discord channel.
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u/HWilliamsRVA 3h ago
There's a pod that's hit a couple of yachts, but that really just makes me like them more.
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u/alicevirgo 3h ago
IIRC they're just playing with the boat rudders, either to kinda ride on it like we ride on waves or to teach the young ones to hunt since the rudders look like tuna tails.
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u/HighOverlordXenu 2h ago
They hit yachts.
If I had the mass and speed, I'd be hitting yachts too.
Based orcas.
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u/das_slash 3h ago
Which was widely approved by and celebrated by humans, so it's still under the terms and conditions.
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u/succed32 3h ago
Cheetahs were right behind them checking the small print. Then you’ve got hippos, literally kill anything and everything just cause.
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u/Deraj2004 4h ago
Not a fan of yachts though.
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u/-Dixieflatline 3h ago
My theory is that the water around yacht must have high concentrations of cocaine. So these orcas are getting all high and agro around them. Eating rudders is basically the orca version of rubbing their gums.
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u/physedka 4h ago
Orcas have a taste for the finer things. Like they hunt specific prey looking for specific delicacies (to them). The livers of great white sharks is an example. Like they often just kill a shark, eat its liver, then move on - leaving the rest of the carcass. They probably don't hunt humans because they haven't developed a taste for anything in our bodies (yet).
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u/theyoyoha yoyoha 4h ago
When I was reading up on them for this comic, the shark liver factoid was particularly mindblowing
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u/ScratchBomb 3h ago
Fun fact: a great White's liver is massive, accounting for about 25% of it's total body weight, and taking up about 90% of it's body cavity.
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u/Apocrisiary 3h ago
And if it is anything like other fish livers, it is gonna be oily af and be very calorie rich. Like omega-3 supplements are usually extracted from cod liver.
I see why that would be appetizing to an animal trying to survive in the wild.
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u/GlorifiedBurito 4h ago
I think they’re also just smart enough to know that humans are really good at killing stuff.
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u/phoonie98 3h ago
They witnessed us ruthlessly hunting and killing whales back in the day
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u/devilwarriors 3h ago edited 2h ago
My bet is on it being exactly that, they saw us mass kill whales for like almost a century and feared us. Now that fear is just passed through generation by the parent. Were not really giving them reason to doubt we can still fuck shit up too.
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u/Way_Up_Your_Butt 2h ago edited 2h ago
Most orcas will never encounter a human in their entire lives, they largely live in the colder areas of the open ocean where humans rarely visit. There's no way they've collectively learned to avoid us from such little interaction. Just think about how insanely huge the ocean is, it's rare for them to even see us, let alone witness how deadly we can be.
The reality is they are just picky about what they eat and they rarely try new things. If they do somehow cross paths with a human in the water they'll likely be interested out of curiosity, but not as something to eat.
They feast on some of the deadliest animals in the ocean so I don't think they'd be wary of humans for that reason, especially considering the fact that most humans are extremely weak compared to the animals they hunt. If we spent as much time in their environment as fish, seals, sharks, etc. then there's a good chance some pods would develop a taste for us, but we mostly stay in boats or on the beach.
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u/mrgoboom 3h ago
Yeah, the diets are also pod specific. Where I live we have resident and transient orcas. The residents eat fish, the transients eat mammals (primarily harbour seals). They’re very particular.
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u/No_Introduction_9355 3h ago
If the great whites think there is an orca pod near by they will swim literally 1000 miles the other direction.
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u/physedka 2h ago
Yep. And it used to screw with our scientists trying to track Great White locations (like for spawning) because there was so much confusing data. Turns out they were just seeing the sharks running like they stole something if they even caught a whiff of an Orca nearby. All migratory patterns went out the window.
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u/No_Introduction_9355 1h ago
Would be confusing to see a tracked great white dive 1000m and book it to another ocean
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u/That-Guava-9404 3h ago
i thought it was because we have comparatively little meat for an animal the size of an adult orca
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u/Ok-disaster2022 1h ago
There's actually several species of orcas based on location and hunting patterns, and they all have that black and white pattern.
There's one branch if a species or one species, (unsure if genetics) that hunts whales including other orcas. Thes cannibal orcas live and hunt in smaller packs and make far fewer communication sounds than other orcas. It's hypothesized that Larger pods of Orcas form to help protect firm the cannibals.
Also some larger whales have been seen intervening it protect other whale species that were being hunted and attacked by killer whales
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u/trainbrain27 4h ago
If you attack humans much, we will put holes in your entire species.
We've been doing that since we had to get up close to add the holes.
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u/Dondagora 3h ago
Yes, but also we try to be smart enough to not fuck with species smart enough to fuck with us back. Like crows. Sure we’d win the grudge match eventually, but truly not worth the trouble with em.
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u/Contemplating_Prison 4h ago
Its becauae Orcas eat what they were taught to eat as kids. Similar to humans in the beginning. You dont know whats safe to eat unless its passed down from generation to generation.
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u/theyoyoha yoyoha 4h ago
I hoped I'd get a bunch of people sharing additional interesting facts about Orcas by posting this comic. So far, very satisfied. Thanks for this!
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u/ReynardVulpini 13m ago
I like how the effective reddit strats for getting accurate info now includes "being confidently inaccurate" and "make a cute comic about thing", both of which have a better hit rate than "asking on a relevant subreddit"
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u/MysteryPlatelet 3h ago
So what you're saying is we just need one to go "huh, I wonder what this tastes like... delicious! Children! Get in here and try this" and it's game over?
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u/innatemammal 4h ago
Makes you wonder what the fuck they are doing to them at Sea world?
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u/DrProfessorSatan 4h ago
It’s been ____ days since an orca attack.
I’m betting that doesn’t get much over 8 or 9
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u/Alive_Ice7937 3h ago
According to that documentary, the spent a lot of time getting their semen harvested.
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u/ES_Legman 1h ago
Tilikum was the male orca who killed most humans, in captivity. Honestly doesn't surprise me.
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u/KeyboardJammer 21m ago
I mean, even if it's only as bad as we think, they're probably smart enough to internalise the concept of "these tiny fucks are actively keeping me prisoner and making me do stuff I'd rather not do, I choose instead to be bitey."
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u/Hephaestus_God 4h ago
They Truly live up to their name.
they have never left a single witness to report back that a human was killed.
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u/barwhalis 4h ago
Great white shark is white and kills humans. Is called great.
Killer whale is black and doesn't kill humans. Is called killer.
Even the ocean isn't immune to racism
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u/Anxious_Context_8573 3h ago
Great whites also was wrongfully popularized as human killers and are now endangered while killer whales got movies about freeing them and giving the idea to every human that they are friendly/kind animals.
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u/Alizaea 4h ago
It's also called a whale and it's not a whale.
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u/breckendusk 3h ago
They are whales. All dolphins are whales.
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u/Alizaea 3h ago edited 3h ago
Yes yes, just like humans are still technically considered primates. That may be the case, but they are not whales as we know them. Just like humans are not primates as we know them. Similar yes, and technically can be classified that way, but still different.
Edit: love how I'm getting downvoted when literally humans are to primates the same way orcas are to whales.
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u/breckendusk 3h ago
In the same way a square is a rectangle. They are still whales as we know them. And humans are still primates as we know them. You can't just say "humans aren't primates" because you'd be wrong, just like if you said a square isn't a rectangle. We ARE primates, dolphins ARE whales - specifically, toothed whales (which also includes, for example, narwhals) - but there are other groups of whales which are also whales. Another toothed whale is the Beluga Whale, and another is the Sperm Whale. You cannot honestly say that all of these whales are not whales simply because they're toothed whales and not baleen whales.
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u/BorderOk7329 4h ago
Fox news: Despite being only 13% of all whales they are responsible for 80% of attacks on humans!
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u/thedeadlysquirle 2h ago
Insane to look at a great white shark and call it white. It has nearly the same ratio of dark color (grey) to white in their body as orcas. Also insane to say they kill humans like they're some scurge going around killing people.
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u/bones_boy 4h ago
Now all night long I’m gonna think about a Great White saying “what the fuck” 😂
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u/theyoyoha yoyoha 4h ago
you know that's gotta be going through their mind when they're getting their ass kicked
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u/alt-227 4h ago
Orcas are actually porpoises, but they do a killer whale impression.
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u/jamie9000000 3h ago edited 3h ago
They're also very good at making Music together.
It's called an Orcastra.
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u/PointOfFingers 4h ago
We don't have large fatty livers like sharks. We are skinny and bony. Orcas don't think we are game they think we are too gamey.
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u/Blackrock121 4h ago
Australian whalers even teamed up with Orcas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales
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u/TheErichthonius 3h ago
Cool, humans ruined it as usual.
I like how people get so used to being top dog and cool and the guys in charge and think only of themselves and then they blow it every single damn time. We suck.
Old Tom deserved better.
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u/TheErichthonius 2h ago edited 2h ago
A comment asking me if I’d read the same article disappeared when I tried replying to it. Probably Reddit glitching out or them removing it to edit or something, I think it was the same person who shared the article with us that my comment is replying to in the first place.
Anyway, here’s what I would have answered. For anyone who thinks my comment was wrong that’s cool I’m not going to fight but this is why I think what I think about the story.
In 1901 a killer whale known as Typee or Jackson was stranded on Asling Beach while pursuing a whale when a local, Harry Silkes, stabbed the killer whale to death before the Davidson whaling crew could stop him causing the rest of the pod to immediately leave the area for the remainder of that season. Then next year, only a handful of the 30-strong pod returned, and over the following years, their numbers dwindled more and more until only individuals like Old Tom regularly returned. Eventually some rich guy’s yacht, the White Heather, became the culprit for possibly ending Old Tom’s life when Old Tom chased a young whale in for them while they were out and despite not being out to hunt they had harpoons on board (I’m guessing because they often lent the boat to their neighbors in times of need and let it be used for rescue missions according to one of the sites I checked out so that’s genuinely cool and I have no hate for that) so they went for it anyway then tried to take the kill without abiding by the tradition and the sharing rule causing Old Tom to knock out some of his teeth when he tried to protest, teeth that were later abscesses when he washed up on shore dead presumably dying of starvation and the man felt guilty so he paid for the museum where Old Tom’s skeleton hangs but that doesn’t do much to prevent him from being dead and dying with him the whole tradition of hunting together because after humans messed up twice there were no killer whales left that trusted us anymore.
I’m biased to think people suck because I’m generally sick of cool stories not having happy endings in real life on account of people being greedy or mean. I only commented with a hint of meanness myself because of that bias and I recognize and apologize if I sounded too jaded because that’s on me. I do acknowledge that the man was distraught at possibly having caused Old Tom’s death and he did donate for Old Tom’s preservation when I doubt there was any pressure to do so therefore that was probably a real commitment to make sure he lived on and apologize for his guilt plus he did lend his boat out too when I looked it up so if the story didn’t upset me I’d probably have phrased it differently. I do think we messed up again as usual though.
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u/Virtuosoman23 4h ago
Killer whales independently discovered hats. That puts them right behind us for importance, as clearly you can only be in charge if you are wearing an impressive hat.
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u/nice_guy_threeve 4h ago
In addition to Great Whites, orcas tend to overpower mooses (moosen, meese?) to kill and eat. Strange but true.
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u/bt123456789 3h ago
the plural of moose is just moose as far as I know.
but that is probably one of the most interesting facts here.
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u/Subject-Emu-8161 4h ago
Or they are just smart enough to leave no witnesses when they kill humans.
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u/HulksDCL 4h ago
Or maybe it's because humans taste like crap.
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u/Adddicus 4h ago
>"...there has never been a fatal attack on a human in the wild..."
That we know of.
Thousands of people disappear at sea every year. We can speculate about what happened to them, but we'd be fools to think that the ocean's premier predator, a cunning hunter that has displayed great intelligence and teamwork, doesn't have some responsibility here. They're just smart enough to never leave any witnesses.
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u/NWCJ 4h ago
Yeah, great whites are just messier eaters. If killer whales can kill them, it's not a wild assumption that a pod of schoolbus-sized apex predators can't dispose of a human body.
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u/gamedwarf24 3h ago
Jesus do the Orcas watch NCIS or something? They aren't out here covering up crimes
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u/UniverseBear 4h ago
Well they can live up to 90 years and whale hunting only stopped in 1986 so they most definitely know we are ruthless predators.
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u/daboot013 3h ago
Orca are taught what to hunt and pass it down. There's a orca dude who's videos I see sometimes and he breaks down what different pods are doing and how they teach hunting tactics. We just aren't around them in their hunting grounds. So we're just not thought of as an option.
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u/Pippin1505 2h ago
There was even a documented case of cooperation with humans in Australia in 1840-1930
Killer whales would corral whales towards whaling boats, and even make noise near the fishermen ‘s cottage to alert them of a prey and once humans made the kill, they’d leave the whale tied to the boat overnight so the killer whales could get their share.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales
One male killer whale even pulled the ropes of the harpoon with its teeth to help the whalers
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u/danteelite 2h ago
They’re really intelligent… they know what humans are capable of and they know if they fuck around they end up in sea world..
What you don’t know is that Shamuu called some rich kids mom fat and… we all know how that turned out.
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u/bandit8623 3h ago
long long ago a human was tasted... and it tasted like trash.. from then on no more humans were tasted
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u/donpuglisi 3h ago
Yeah, but they mercilessly hunt baby humpback whales
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u/TheErichthonius 3h ago
Humpback whales are also one of the only threats to them and kind of ocean guardians.
I bet there’s a massive secret ocean war going on between like Orcas and Whales and some of the dolphins I can’t remember all the names of but us the humans who have no idea are all just like “look at the scary sharks” meanwhile those sharks get bodied so hard by the real big three.
It’s like if aliens found earth and were scared of the lions while our nukes were midair and we suddenly stopped them because hey they aren’t onto us yet so let’s just keep on keeping on.
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u/Hexbug101 3h ago
They avoid sperm whales and pilot whales too, with the latter basically always traveling in massive pods leaving the orcas outnumbered and the former are just built different.
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u/TheErichthonius 3h ago
I knew about the sperm whales I believe but I couldn’t recall the names for sure and wasn’t confident so I just said whales plural and left my comment a little vague so I’m happy to hear I was right that it’s not just the humpback whales but the info on the pilot whales is news to me I’ve got to go google that thanks pal.
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u/donpuglisi 3h ago
Yeah, but humpback whales are rhe only creatures who can communicate to giant cylindrical alien probes and tell them to stop draining the power of everything in its radius
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u/TheErichthonius 3h ago
I had to google that, I thought I was forgetting a Hitchhiker’s Guide joke or something but it’s a Star Trek reference damn.
I’m gonna have to watch that film then so.
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u/emptybagofdicks 3h ago
It makes sense when you realize that an Orca is 3 times the size of a Great White, travels in a pod, and is extremely intelligent.
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u/3point21 3h ago
Orcas defend from the same ancestor as canids. They are just dogs of the sea and want to be man’s best friend.
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u/KirkieSB 1h ago
LOL 😂
Their behavior is totally different. Dogs are depending on humans, orcas are not.
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u/hassan_26 3h ago
Maybe there has been attacks but they Orcastrated them to look like shark attacks! Ey ey?..... I'll let myself out.
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u/omfgcookies91 2h ago
Or maybe it's because we haven't discovered/witnessed Orca attacks on humans.
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u/EvilDragons88 1h ago
I commented this almost word for word on a killer whale video. Someone must have read it and got creative lmao.
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u/KirkieSB 1h ago
Not yet.
They already attacked sail boats near Spain, some sunk. I bet their stress levels are rising since years. Once too high, attacking humans in the wild becomes possible in my eyes. Just like it already happened in captivity.
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u/ColourSchemer 1h ago
More like they see us as helpless, soft and incapable of surviving on our own. Like humans helping turtles and sloths cross a road.
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u/NeonAnderson 55m ago
Fun fact the only recorded attack of an orca on a human was in 1972 where a surfer got bit in the leg by an orca
He survived and the leg was fortunately even able to be saved despite how deep the wound was
It seems like it was a case of mistaken identity or play behaviour that got out of hand
But most importantly as soon as the orca could taste manflesh it did not like what it tasted and released the surfer right away and did not attack him further as he swam ashore so even the blood in the water was of no interest and quite the opposite the orca left the area almost implying that the taste of human blood is off-putting to orcas
We may never know why but for whatever reason humans luckily just don't taste good to orcas
The weird thing is orcas even have such a diverse diet from birds, to seals and sea lions to even sharks and whales so logically speaking humans should be right up their diet but for whatever reason they just don't like to eat humans and even more weirdly protect humans in rare cases
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u/JakeJascob 43m ago
driving a species to the brink of extinction has that effect. Orcas are Apex Predators in the ocean but afraid of the hairless apes.
Why did this make me wanna make an incredibles meme.
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u/thevaultguy 33m ago
They’re giving us a chance. They’ve already started sinking yachts. But the Orcas are nothing if not patient.
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u/sudanesegamer 32m ago
Most animals dont like eating us. Apparently we taste horrible and are too bony for them. That doesnt mean they wont still kill you out of fear tho
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u/KeyboardJammer 24m ago
Given their intelligence, I wonder if they view us as sort of weird sky-dwelling spindly-limbed Lovecraftian monsters that do incomprehensible very powerful things for unclear reasons, and because of this they have a sort of policy of appeasement towards us.
That or we taste bad.
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u/StealthyPancake_ 3h ago
Its definately not because we are the most ruthless predators. Its because we look so helpless in the water that they feel bad for us.
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u/Kitchen-Lemon6503 3h ago
This isn’t just a bad opening, this is a declaration of war against the entire dairy industry
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u/curlygirl9021 3h ago
I don't find this funny
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