![]() Years of tediously difficult research has given scientists some understanding of killer whales - but also has made them aware of how little they know about the creatures.įor starters, there's puzzlement over exactly how to categorize them. "But, certainly, if we are talking about whether killer whales have the wherewithal and the cognitive capacity to intentionally strike out at someone, or to be angry, or to really know what they are doing, I would have to say the answer is yes." "I'm not trying to second-guess what was in this particular whale's mind," said Marino, part of the Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology Program at Emory University in Atlanta. 24, when a large male orca with a checkered past killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando by dragging her into a tank. Human interaction with captive killer whales has come under scrutiny since Feb. ![]() But they aren't surprised that the world's biggest, most powerful and possibly smartest predator, captured and kept for years in a tank, cut off from the influences of an extended family, could have a fatal encounter with a human. These researchers have yet to find evidence that an orca in the wild has ever killed a person. Scientists are trying to better understand how killer whales are able to learn local dialects, teach one another specialized methods of hunting and pass on behaviors that can persist for generations - longer possibly than seen with any other species except humans. It's not clear whether they are as well-endowed with memory cells as humans, but scientists have found they are amazingly well-wired for sensing and analyzing their watery, three-dimensional environment. ![]() Killer whales, or orcas, have the second-biggest brains among all ocean mammals, weighing as much as 15 pounds. ![]()
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