We’ve recently seen orcas foray into the world of fashion by wearing dead salmon as hats. Now a pair of orcas has been caught ‘French kissing’, taking their apparent mockery of human habits towards another flavor of gross.
The whales’ slobber sharing was incidentally captured by citizen scientists who observed and recorded the wild orcas (Orcinus orca) nibbling on each other’s tongues in Norway’s Kvænangen fjords. Maybe the marine mammals used some kelp grooming tools earlier to prepare for this date?
“The interaction… lasted nearly two minutes and involved repeated episodes of gentle, face-to-face oral contact,” describe marine scientist Javier Almunia, director of the Loro Parque Foundation, and colleagues.
Such behavior in orcas had only been observed in captivity previously, as recorded in a 2019 study (video below).
“We documented the pattern ‘gentle tongue bite’, where an animal touches the other’s tongue with his teeth but does not bite it,” the researchers explained at the time.
Related: Dolphins Got Giant Testicles. We Got a Chin. Only One Makes Sense.
Beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) have also displayed mouth-to-mouth interactions in the wild. During a study on captive belugas, kissing behaviors were mostly initiated by the young animals, suggestive of play that might help refine motor and social skills.
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Neither species showed any signs of aggression during these interactions. So, while researchers caution it is difficult to draw conclusions from a single observation, they suspect the orcas could be using this behavior to help maintain social bonds.
Alternatively, the ‘kissing’ could be a form of social grooming – as seen in primates – or even a type of begging behavior, Almunia and team speculate. It might also be a cultural trend, a game passing through the pod like the dead salmon hats, which only seem to occur in one cultural group of orcas.
Along with kelp or pebble grooming, other signs of distinct orca cultures include regional differences in their dialects, food preferences, and hunting techniques. A group in the Mediterranean has even developed a habit of attacking sailing yachts.
Whatever the purpose behind an orca’s kiss, the recent spate of unexpected behaviors discovered in orcas makes one thing clear: there’s still so much we don’t understand about the remarkable animals we share our world with.
This research was published in Oceans.
