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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/23/killer-whales-kelp-grooming-tool-use>
"Killer whales have been observed mutually grooming each other with a type of
seaweed, the first known instance of a marine animal using tools in a way that
was previously thought to be the preserve of primates such as humans.
A group of killer whales, which are also known as orcas, have been biting off
short sections of bull kelp and then rolling these stems between their bodies,
possibly to remove dead skin or parasites. The behavior is the first such
documented mutual grooming in marine animals and is outlined in a new
scientific paper.
The discovery was made in a contained group of 73 killer whales that live in
the southern part of the Salish Sea, a section of the Pacific Ocean hugging the
coast of Washington state in the US and Canada’s British Columbia.
Researchers were surprised to see a whale remove a 2ft section of bull kelp,
balance it on its nose and then approach another whale to wedge the kelp
between their bodies and rub it between them. At first, the scientists thought
this was a quirky one-off but then noticed this was a widespread behavior
within the group, according to the paper, published in the journal
Current
Biology.
“We started keeping an eye out for the behavior and realized this was a common,
frequent behavior, which was a very exciting moment,” said Michael Weiss,
research director at the Center for Whale Research and the study’s lead author.
“We realized we had stumbled across a newly described behavior, which is
remarkable. You don’t even think it is a possibility to find something new like
this when you’re observing whales.”"
Via Susan ****
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*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
