The Orca!
Killer Whale – Orcinus orca
Over the last few years we have been blessed with Orca Pods arriving in False Bay, hunting dolphins and other larger marine fish and mammals. This fantastic spectacle has attracted the likes of photographers and wildlife lover’s world-wide. We were privileged enough to be able to view and follow them on one of our Shark Cage Diving trips this year, at African Shark Eco-Charters.
What makes the Orca such an incredible creature is their unique adaption to its environment, and unbelievable intelligence, making them the finest predators in the Ocean.
The Orca, or Killer Whale is actually the largest member of the Dolphin family. The Orcas are the most incredible and feared hunters of the deep, working together they seem to strategize, showing signs of extreme intelligence, while they force their prey into fatal situations. Orcas use echolocation, bouncing sounds off objects in order to determine their location. Incredibly they can also utilize high pitched clicks to stun their prey. They also happen to be among the fastest marine mammals, making them a ferociously dangerous apex predator.
They are exceptionally social mammals, which travel in pods consisting usually of 5 – 30 whales, sometimes these pods, sometimes these pods combine and you can find up to a 100 together. These pods are led by females, they form social hierarchies, and they seem to form highly complex forms of communication, with different dialects, from one pod to another.
