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Orcas (or killer whales) 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]
Although resident orcas have never been observed to eat other marine mammals, they occasionally harass and kill porpoises and seals for no apparent reason. [106] Some dolphins recognize resident orcas as harmless and remain in the same area. [107] Orcas do consume seabirds but are more likely to kill and leave them uneaten.
The herring population is not completely depleted by orcas because they never eat the whole herring ball during the feeding phase of carousel feeding. [2] The herring that are not consumed are able to escape from the orcas. This means the orcas do not completely deplete their food source and potentially the strongest herring will survive the ...
A stoat surplus killing chipmunks (Ernest Thompson Seton, 1909) Multiple sheep killed by a cougar. Surplus killing, also known as excessive killing, henhouse syndrome, [1] [2] or overkill, [3] is a common behavior exhibited by predators, in which they kill more prey than they can immediately eat and then they either cache or abandon the remainder.
On average, an adult killer whale in the wild may eat about three to four percent of their body weight daily, [82] or as much as 227 kg (500 lb) of food for a six-ton male. Their diet in the wild depends on what is available, and may include fish, walruses, seals, sea lions, penguins, squid, sea turtles, sharks and whales. [ 83 ]
Mobbing can also be used to obtain food, by driving larger birds and mammals away from a food source, or by harassing a bird with food. One bird might distract while others quickly steal food. Scavenging birds such as gulls frequently use this technique to steal food from humans nearby. A flock of birds might drive a powerful animal away from food.
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In these systems, humans mainly eat predatory fish and have a fractional trophic level of 4.65 and 4.5, respectively, which in Roopnarine's view makes those humans apex predators. [ b ] [ 30 ] In 2021, Miki Ben-Dor and colleagues compared human biology to that of animals at various trophic levels.