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An attack on a strap-toothed whale. Orcas are large, powerful aquatic apex predators. There have been incidents where orcas were perceived to attack humans in the wild, but such attacks are less common than those by captive orcas. [1] In captivity, there have been several non-fatal and four fatal attacks on humans since the 1970s. [2]
Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799.On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale.
The sperm whale or cachalot [a] (Physeter macrocephalus) is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator.It is the only living member of the genus Physeter and one of three extant species in the sperm whale family, along with the pygmy sperm whale and dwarf sperm whale of the genus Kogia.
One common theory is that the fluid—which hardens to wax when cold—helps the whale alter its buoyancy so it can dive deep and rise again." And sperm whales function as a family, "Sperm whales ...
The meat the orcas took was likely squid, the company said, either “stolen from the sperm whales’ jaws or regurgitated (by the sperm whales) in a defensive effort to relinquish a potential ...
Orca attacking a strap-toothed beaked whale. Orcas also prey on larger species such as sperm whales, grey whales, humpback whales and minke whales. [84] [40] On three separate occasions in 2019 orcas were recorded to have killed blue whales off the south coast of Western Australia, including an estimated 18–22-meter (59–72 ft) individual. [89]
This research is still in preliminary stages, said Doug Nowacek, a marine biologist at Duke University who helped put trackers on whales this summer off Massachusetts as part of a 5-year federally ...
Historically, whaling took a heavy toll on sperm whale populations. Prior to the early 18th century, sperm whales were hunted in Japan and Indonesia. Legend has it that sometime in the early 18th century, supposed to be not far from 1712, Captain Christopher Hussey, while cruising for right whales near shore, was blown offshore by a northerly wind, where he encountered a school of sperm whales ...