Orcas

An orca's final moments may have been captured on film for the first time, after repeated attempts by two young orcas to keep the old, dying male at the surface so he could breathe.

For the fourth time in two years, a group of unusually brazen orcas in southwestern Europe have sunk a sailing boat after relentlessly attacking it for almost an hour on Halloween.

Orcas have their own dialect, greeting ceremonies and even wore salmon as hats in a weird fad during the 1980s.

From sinking boats and feasting on shark livers to dining on whale tongue and tossing porpoises around for fun, orcas are displaying some fascinating — and sometimes terrifying — behaviors.

Researchers used DNA analysis and traditional knowledge to learn about an orca named Old Tom and his family's remarkable relationship with humans.

Scientists may have finally figured out why a population of orcas in the Salish Sea have been tossing porpoises around and taking them into their mouths without eating them.

The female orca was found far from her normal hunting ground with six whole sea otters in its stomach and one lodged between its oral cavity and the esophagus.

More orcas have died entangled in fishing gear in Alaska this year than in previous years, which may be linked to a "new behavior" where they feed in front of ascending fishing nets.

Lolita, also known as Tokitae, died before she could be returned to her native waters in the Pacific Northwest.

The orca "slurped in the liver and then the whale shark just fell and descended down, with no movement," James Moskito of Ocean Safaris told Live Science.