Latest news with #RachelJohn
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Killer whales seen grooming each other
A discovery of unique killer whale behavior may be the first documented time a marine species has been seen using and creating tools for something not food-related. The finding was made in Washington by the Center for Whale Research, and it wouldn't have happened without the diligence of researchers. 'It was almost like puzzle pieces coming together because we started noticing with the great drone camera, but we were unsure if it was something new, a one-off or two-off situation, if it's just something weird they're doing, they do weird things all the time,' said Rachel John, a researcher with the Center for Whale Research. Over several periods between April and July 2024, researchers such as John, Dr. Michael Weiss, and others watched as a whale would cut a piece of kelp loose, pin it on another Orca, then rotate its body to roll the kelp on the other whale. In some instances, the other Orca would return the favor. 'This is a major part of their social lives… we are now seeing this behavior more times than we are not,' Weiss said. The team has dubbed the behavior 'allogrooming,' and while they haven't been able to definitively show the purpose, they theorize the whales use kelp to care for each other's skin. 'We have found some evidence that whales with more dead skin are more likely to engage in this behavior, but we also need to see if they engage in this behavior enough, and whether they start to effectively remove dead skin,' Weiss said. 'It's also a case of tool manufacturing or tool fashioning. Both of those things are quite rare in animals generally and particularly rare in marine mammals.' It's the first documented case of tool use and tool creation by a marine species, according to the Center for Whale Research. CWR also says it could also potentially be the first occurrence in which a tool is created by an animal that benefits two animals at the same time, and the first use of a tool by an animal using their body, rather than an appendage. 'It's quite remarkable the way they managed to manipulate this kelp. It requires coordination between the two whales,' Weiss said. 'Their ability to coordinate their movements, to sense where the kelp is, and to have, not hand-eye coordination, but the physical ability to move their bodies the way they need to is really impressive.' The discovery was made thanks to new drones the Center acquired after a grant from the Rose Foundation. Weiss and his team are continuing to look into the behavior as they study other aspects of killer whales as well. So far, Weiss says it's almost certainly a learned behavior that is distinct in the J, K, and L pods that make up the Southern Resident Orcas. The transient Biggs Killer Whales that migrate through the Puget Sound and Salish Sea do not exhibit the same behavior, despite cutting kelp free and moving through bull kelp forests. 'We also want to look over time to see if whales who do this behavior together are more likely to then show other kind of cooperative behaviors, like hunting together and sharing food and other forms of social interaction to really demonstrate more clearly whether or not this behavior helps build social bonds,' Weiss said. The Center for Whale Research is a non-profit organization predominantly supported by public donations. For more information, you can visit their website.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Killer whales caught on video grooming each other with seaweed
Killer whales have been caught on video breaking off pieces of seaweed to rub and groom each other, scientists announced Monday, in what they said is the first evidence of marine mammals making their own tools. Humans are far from being the only member of the animal kingdom that has mastered using tools. Chimpanzees fashion sticks to fish for termites, crows create hooked twigs to catch grubs and elephants swat flies with branches. Tool use in the world's difficult-to-study oceans is rarer, however sea otters are known to smash open shellfish with rocks, while octopuses can make mobile homes out of coconut shells. A study published in the journal Current Biology describes a new example of tool use by a critically endangered population of orcas. Scientists have been monitoring the southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, between the Canadian province of British Columbia and Washington state, for more than 50 years. Rachel John, a master's student at Exeter University in the U.K., told a press conference that she first noticed "something kind of weird" going on while watching drone camera footage last year. The researchers went back over old footage and were surprised to find this behavior is quite common, documenting 30 examples over eight days. One whale would use its teeth to break off a piece of bull kelp, which is strong but flexible like a garden hose. It would then put the kelp between its body and the body of another whale, and they would rub it between them for several minutes. The pair forms an "S" shape to keep the seaweed positioned between their bodies as they roll around. "Skin maintenance behaviors" Whales are already known to frolic through seaweed in a practice called "kelping." They are thought to do this partly 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 kelping with another whale. "We hypothesize that allokelping is similar to skin maintenance behaviors exhibited by other cetaceans," the researchers wrote. They found that killer whales with more dead skin were more likely to engage in the activity, cautioning that it was a small sample size. Whales also tended to pair up with family members or others of a similar age, suggesting the activity has a social element. The scientists said it was the first known example of a marine mammal manufacturing a tool. Janet Mann, a biologist at Georgetown University not involved in the study, praised the research but said it "went a bit too far" in some of its claims. Bottlenose dolphins that use marine sponges to trawl for prey could also be considered to be manufacturing tools, she told AFP. And it could be argued that other whales known to use nets of bubbles or plumes of mud to hunt represent tool use benefitting multiple individuals, another first claimed in the paper, Mann said. However, the study's authors say allokelping may be the "first case of non-human animals manipulating a tool with the core of their body rather than an appendage." Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research and the study's lead author, said it appeared to be just the latest example of socially learned behavior among animals that could be considered "culture." But the number of southern resident killer whales has dwindled to just 73, meaning we could soon lose this unique cultural tradition, he warned. "If they disappear, we're never getting any of that back," he said. The whales mainly eat Chinook salmon, whose numbers have plummeted due to overfishing, climate change, habitat destruction and other forms of human interference. The orcas and salmon are not alone — undersea kelp forests have also been devastated as ocean temperatures rise. Unless something changes, the outlook for southern resident killer whales is "very bleak," Weiss warned. Earlier this year, an unusual spectacle featuring a pod of orcas was also caught on video when onlookers in Seattle were treated to the rare sight of the apex predators hunting a bird close to shore. Killer whales have made headlines for other reasons in recent years. Boaters in Europe have reported several instances of orcas ramming into their vessels in a pattern that baffled many marine experts. Sailors said they resorted to everything from throwing sand in the water to setting off fireworks to blasting thrash metal music in efforts to ward off the encroaching predators. Kidney dialysis industry accused of maximizing profits over patients Pentagon officials reveal new details about U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites Netanyahu reacts to U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites
News.com.au
2 days ago
- Science
- News.com.au
Killer whales spotted grooming each other with seaweed
Killer whales have been caught on video breaking off pieces of seaweed to rub and groom each other, scientists announced Monday, in what they said is the first evidence of marine mammals making their own tools. Humans are far from being the only member of the animal kingdom that has mastered using tools. Chimpanzees fashion sticks to fish for termites, crows create hooked twigs to catch grubs and elephants swat flies with branches. Tool-use in the world's difficult-to-study oceans is rarer, however sea otters are known to smash open shellfish with rocks, while octopuses can make mobile homes out of coconut shells. A study published in the journal Current Biology describes a new example of tool use by a critically endangered population of orcas. Scientists have been monitoring the southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, between Canada's British Columbia and the US state of Washington, for more than 50 years. Rachel John, a Masters student at Exeter University in the UK, told a press conference that she first noticed "something kind of weird" going on while watching drone camera footage last year. The researchers went back over old footage and were surprised to find this behaviour is quite common, documenting 30 examples over eight days. One whale would use its teeth to break off a piece of bull kelp, which is strong but flexible like a garden hose. It would then put the kelp between its body and the body of another whale, and they would rub it between them for several minutes. The pair forms an "S" shape to keep the seaweed positioned between their bodies as they roll around. - For fun and clean skin - Whales are already known to frolic through seaweed in a practice called "kelping". They are thought to do this partly for fun, partly to use the seaweed to scrub their bodies to remove dead skin. The international team of researchers called the new behaviour "allokelping," which means kelping with another whale. They found that killer whales with more dead skin were more likely to engage in the activity, cautioning that it was a small sample size. Whales also tended to pair up with family members or others of a similar age, suggesting the activity has a social element. The scientists said it was the first known example of a marine mammal manufacturing a tool. Janet Mann, a biologist at Georgetown University not involved in the study, praised the research but said it "went a bit too far" in some of its claims. Bottlenose dolphins that use marine sponges to trawl for prey could also be considered to be manufacturing tools, she told AFP. And it could be argued that other whales known to use nets of bubbles or plumes of mud to hunt represent tool-use benefitting multiple individuals, another first claimed in the paper, Mann said. - Culture could soon be lost - Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research and the study's lead author, said it appeared to be just the latest example of socially learned behaviour among animals that could be considered "culture". But the number of southern resident killer whales has dwindled to just 73, meaning we could soon lose this unique cultural tradition, he warned. "If they disappear, we're never getting any of that back," he said. The whales mainly eat Chinook salmon, whose numbers have plummeted due to overfishing, climate change, habitat destruction and other forms of human interference. The orcas and salmon are not alone -- undersea kelp forests have also been devastated as ocean temperatures rise. Unless something changes, the outlook for southern resident killer whales is "very bleak," Weiss warned. dl/phz
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Science
- Miami Herald
Drones spot ‘first evidence' of orcas making tools, study says. ‘Remarkable'
Over the years, orcas have been seen partaking in some peculiar practices, from sinking sailboats to wearing salmon 'hats.' Now, the apex predators have been observed engaging in a 'remarkable' new behavior: fashioning tools from underwater plants to massage one another. The discovery — published June 23 in Current Biology — constitutes the 'first evidence' recorded of tool-making by marine mammals. 'We were amazed when we first noticed this,' Michael Weiss, the director of the Center for Whale Research (CWR), said in a University of Exeter news release. Allokelping Researchers from both institutions stumbled upon the previously unknown behavior while flying drones over the 'southern resident' orcas in the Salish Sea, located between Washington and British Columbia. 'I was watching one of those really close-up videos when I saw something that looked like a brown stick between two whales that were in contact with each other,' Rachel John, an Exeter master's student, said in the release. Researchers realized this was not an isolated incident. Close analysis revealed it happened again and again — and involving the same steps each time. Whales were seen biting off the tips of bull kelp stalks, placing them between themselves and another whale and then rolling the stalk between their two bodies over long periods — with the longest lasting 12 minutes. This newfound behavior — dubbed 'allokelping' — is distinct from 'kelping,' a phenomenon previously observed in multiple whale species, wherein whales move kelp with their bodies, heads and fins. Allokelping, by contrast, involves deliberately selecting, trimming and manipulating kelp with a partner — qualifying it as tool-making, previously thought to be the exclusive domain of land animals. Researchers documented allokelping on eight separate days out of the 12-day study period, indicating it could be a very common behavior among southern resident killer whales. Social bonding and good hygiene It's not exactly clear why the killer whales rub themselves with kelp stalks, but a few hypotheses were put forward. One is that the behavior — seen among relatives and similar aged animals — plays an important part of the whales' social lives. 'We know touch is really important,' Darren Croft, the executive director of the CWR, said in the release. 'In primates – including humans – touch moderates stress and helps to build relationships. We know killer whales often make contact with other members of their group – touching with their bodies and fins – but using kelp like this might enhance this experience.' Allokelping could also benefit orcas' skin (some dermatologists have lauded its effects on human skin as well). 'Whales and dolphins have a variety of strategies to help them slough dead skin, and this may be yet another adaptation for this purpose,' Croft said. Bull kelp, a type of algae, is also known to have anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. Critical moment The finding comes at a critical moment for southern resident killer whales as just 73 individuals remain, according to the CWR's latest census, conducted in July. The whales primarily feed on King salmon, also known as Chinook, a species that experienced significant declines due to climate change, over-fishing and habitat destruction. The future of the whale population — which does not interbreed with others — looks 'very bleak,' Weiss said. 'We're not seeing the birth rate that's required to sustain the population,' Weiss said. 'Under the status quo, all of our projections indicate the population will continue to decline.'
CBS News
3 days ago
- Science
- CBS News
Killer whales caught on video grooming each other with seaweed after master's student noticed "something kind of weird" going on
Killer whales have been caught on video breaking off pieces of seaweed to rub and groom each other, scientists announced Monday, in what they said is the first evidence of marine mammals making their own tools. Humans are far from being the only member of the animal kingdom that has mastered using tools. Chimpanzees fashion sticks to fish for termites, crows create hooked twigs to catch grubs and elephants swat flies with branches. Tool use in the world's difficult-to-study oceans is rarer, however sea otters are known to smash open shellfish with rocks, while octopuses can make mobile homes out of coconut shells. A study published in the journal Current Biology describes a new example of tool use by a critically endangered population of orcas. Scientists have been monitoring the southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, between the Canadian province of British Columbia and Washington state, for more than 50 years. Rachel John, a master's student at Exeter University in the U.K., told a press conference that she first noticed "something kind of weird" going on while watching drone camera footage last year. The researchers went back over old footage and were surprised to find this behavior is quite common, documenting 30 examples over eight days. One whale would use its teeth to break off a piece of bull kelp, which is strong but flexible like a garden hose. It would then put the kelp between its body and the body of another whale, and they would rub it between them for several minutes. The pair forms an "S" shape to keep the seaweed positioned between their bodies as they roll around. "Skin maintenance behaviors" Whales are already known to frolic through seaweed in a practice called "kelping." They are thought to do this partly 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 kelping with another whale. "We hypothesize that allokelping is similar to skin maintenance behaviors exhibited by other cetaceans," the researchers wrote. They found that killer whales with more dead skin were more likely to engage in the activity, cautioning that it was a small sample size. Whales also tended to pair up with family members or others of a similar age, suggesting the activity has a social element. The scientists said it was the first known example of a marine mammal manufacturing a tool. Janet Mann, a biologist at Georgetown University not involved in the study, praised the research but said it "went a bit too far" in some of its claims. Bottlenose dolphins that use marine sponges to trawl for prey could also be considered to be manufacturing tools, she told AFP. And it could be argued that other whales known to use nets of bubbles or plumes of mud to hunt represent tool use benefitting multiple individuals, another first claimed in the paper, Mann said. However, the study's authors say allokelping may be the "first case of non-human animals manipulating a tool with the core of their body rather than an appendage." Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research and the study's lead author, said it appeared to be just the latest example of socially learned behavior among animals that could be considered "culture." But the number of southern resident killer whales has dwindled to just 73, meaning we could soon lose this unique cultural tradition, he warned. "If they disappear, we're never getting any of that back," he said. The whales mainly eat Chinook salmon, whose numbers have plummeted due to overfishing, climate change, habitat destruction and other forms of human interference. The orcas and salmon are not alone — undersea kelp forests have also been devastated as ocean temperatures rise. Unless something changes, the outlook for southern resident killer whales is "very bleak," Weiss warned. Earlier this year, an unusual spectacle featuring a pod of orcas was also caught on video when onlookers in Seattle were treated to the rare sight of the apex predators hunting a bird close to shore. Killer whales have made headlines for other reasons in recent years. Boaters in Europe have reported several instances of orcas ramming into their vessels in a pattern that baffled many marine experts. Sailors said they resorted to everything from throwing sand in the water to setting off fireworks to blasting thrash metal music in efforts to ward off the encroaching predators.
