WHY ANIMALS DO THE THING

babyim4real:

scinerds:

Humans might not be the only creatures that care about the welfare of other animals. Scientists are beginning to recognize a pattern in humpback whale behavior around the world, a seemingly intentional effort to rescue animals that are being hunted by killer whales.

Marine ecologist Robert Pitman observed a particularly dramatic example of this behavior back in 2009, while observing a pod of killer whales hunting a Weddell seal trapped on an ice floe off Antarctica. The orcas were able to successfully knock the seal off the ice, and just as they were closing in for the kill, a magnificent humpback whale suddenly rose up out of the water beneath the seal.

This was no mere accident. In order to better protect the seal, the whale placed it safely on its upturned belly to keep it out of the water. As the seal slipped down the whale’s side, the humpback appeared to use its flippers to carefully help the seal back aboard. Finally, when the coast was clear, the seal was able to safely swim off to another, more secure ice floe.

Read more

Read the study: Humpback whales interfering when mammal-eating killer whales attack other species: Mobbing behavior and interspecific altruism?

Shez-Empathetic

I love this, and it’s worth checking out the study that’s linked because you have to see just how many citations this paper has. This behavior is legit - it’s been seen so many times and published in so many papers by credible, scientific observers. It’s not just a ‘defend your babies’ behavior because they save calves of other species as well as other marine mammals. It occasionally gets the attacking humpbacks retaliated against and sometimes killed in the process. And yet… they just keep doing it. 

(Sometimes, unscientifically, I wonder: Everyone knows that dolphins are total jerks. Orcas are the biggest, toothiest species of dolphin and they’re known for being dicks - they like teasing prey, tearing it to shreds, and I’m pretty sure I saw a report of them playing with the severed eyeball of a whale they killed a while ago. Do humpbacks just have, like, an ancestral knowledge that orcas are the marine equivalent of that playground bully who taunts the little kids?)