Orca

Also kind of bizarre to think that they can hunt for birds. Not just penguins, but also flying ones.

In steeply banked beaches off Península Valdés, Argentina, and the Crozet Islands, orcas feed on South American sea lions and southern elephant seals in shallow water, even beaching temporarily to grab prey before wriggling back to the sea. Beaching, usually fatal to cetaceans, is not an instinctive behaviour, and can require years of practice for the young.

Orcas imitate others, and seem to deliberately teach skills to their kin. Off the Crozet Islands, mothers push their calves onto the beach, waiting to pull the youngster back if needed.

A captive orca at Marineland of Canada discovered it could regurgitate fish onto the surface, attracting sea gulls, and then eat the birds. Four others then learned to copy the behaviour.

Orcas will engage in surplus killing, that is, killing that is not designed to be for food. As an example, a BBC film crew witnessed orca in British Columbia playing with a male Steller sea lion to exhaustion, but not eating it.

A salmon hat is a cultural fad displayed by orcas, where they wear dead salmon upon their heads. It was first observed in 1987 with southern resident orcas and was a relatively short-lived phenomenon. In 2024, the behaviour was observed again with orcas in Puget Sound. The motivations for salmon hats are unclear, but other orcas will mimic the behaviour once it begins. One hypothesis is that orcas wear salmon hats to display high food availability, or that the same individuals that originally started the trend revitalized it.