Orcas are renowned hunters. Now, they have surprised scientists with an unexpected twist — possibly getting help from dolphins.
In the waters off British Columbia, marine ecologist Sarah Fortune and her colleagues regularly spotted fish-eating killer whales (Orcinus orca) and Pacific white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) swimming together.
“We started to notice that the killer whales and the dolphins weren’t going for the same fish kind of at the same time in a competitive way. Instead, what we saw was there is a little bit of organization,” says Fortune, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.
Drone footage and camera tags captured what may be the first