NPR : ORCAS EXPLODE SUNFISH
Excerpt : Off the shores of Cabo San Lucas, Kathryn Ayres, a scientist at the ocean-health nonprofit Beneath The Waves, saw a surprising orca behavior: One orca holds a sunfish in its mouth, while another lines up and then rams it at high speed — leaving behind thousands of sunfish bits scattered like confetti.
(I'm feeling sorry for the sunfish - seeing it coming! - Siren)
... "We think this may help younger orcas feed more easily — or it could also just be for fun," Ayres says. "Orcas are known for playing with their food."
In fact, these marine mammals have been documented displaying all kinds of "playful" behaviors. Orcas off of Washington state have been seen wearing salmon as hats. And some adolescent orcas take up a hobby of sinking ships.
They're like cats, says Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University who wasn't involved with the study. He says, like cats, orcas like to "torment prey and non-prey alike."
But Pitman thinks this is primarily a feeding behavior. He notes some older orcas that eat sharks have trouble eating later in life due to teeth worn down to their gums — as do young orcas without teeth. Sunfish, like sharks, can be tough to eat. They can weigh thousands of pounds and have incredibly dense, rubbery, and collagenous skin several inches thick. And if that wasn't trouble enough, "there just doesn't seem to be much to eat on a sunfish," he says.
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