Featured Image Credit: Miles Ritter via Flickr
By Kira Krall
The Daily Mail recently published drone footage of a pod of orcas. The newsworthy part? They’re spouting rainbows. We all know the science of rainbows, but we can’t help but to believe that just a little bit of magic is at play here. Watch the video below:
The power of these animals just about smacks you in the face as you watch them effortlessly steam through the water. Their social nature shines through as they dive toward each other. Toward the end of the video, you can even see one of them languidly swimming on its side before surfacing!
The video was shot in Monterey Bay, California. The Bay’s waters are rich in nutrients, which attracts creatures from all reaches of the food web. Orcas are one of the top predators in the Pacific and they cash in on this bounty whenever they can. They’re a popular subject for scientific studies because of how reliable their summer arrival is in Monterey Bay.
Their timely arrival isn’t the only reason they’re studied so extensively: orcas consistently travel, feed, and socialize in nuclear families, all linked by a matriarch. She passes down her hunting strategies and even her dialect. Based on how much the orcas talk to each other, what they eat, and their genetic structure, this study reported that 3 types of pods frequent the waters of Monterey Bay.
The pod shown in the video is likely in one of two groups: a fish-eating local or a marine mammal-hunting part-timer.