Killer whales visit social clubs
Jody Bourton
Earth reporter
Killer whales create and visit social clubs just like people do, scientists have discovered.
Up to 100 fish-eating killer whales come together in the Avacha Gulf, off the coast of Russia.
But no-one knew why these orcas form these huge superpods, when they normally live in smaller groups.
Now scientists report in the Journal of Ethology that these groups act as clubs in which the killer whales form and maintain social ties.
Fish-eating killer whales in the Avacha Gulf live in stable groups called pods that contain an average of ten individuals and up to 20 in the largest pods.
But researchers have seen up to eight of these pods coming together to form large groups of up to 100 animals.
These large aggregations of pods are seen in numerous places around the world where large numbers of killer whales occur such as British Columbia, Alaska, Iceland and Antarctica.
It is unlikely that the whales gather for protection as they have no natural predators.
In the past researchers have suggested that the killer whales meet to increase their foraging success or to breed.
But the behaviour has not been quantified before.
To investigate, Olga Filatova of the Moscow State University and colleagues from the Far East Russia Orca project observed and photographed whales in the Avacha Gulf from a 4m long boat.
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