Despite living their entire lives in the water, killer whales share a lot in common with humans. Research out today shows that some can pull off the sort of antics you\u2019d expect to see on an episode of Jackass.<\/p>\n
For the first time ever, marine scientists have documented orcas (Orcinus orca) ramming into an already dead fish and blowing it into pieces. The mysterious behavior may be a sign of parental assistance among these killer whales or an example of these creatures having a good time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe propose that this \u2018ram-to-fragment\u2019 behavior may have multiple functions, including facilitating foraging for juvenile orcas or reflecting play behavior,\u201d the researchers wrote in their paper, published<\/a> Thursday in the journal Frontiers in Ethology.<\/p>\n A fortuitous discovery <\/p>\n Despite the nickname, orcas are actually a type of dolphin, though dolphins and whales are part of the same broad order of marine mammals called cetaceans.<\/p>\n The researchers, some of whom are based at the ocean conservation non-profit Beneath the Waves<\/a>, weren\u2019t looking to discover a new kind of orca hijinks. They were observing a pod of orcas in the Gulf of California that had killed a sharp-tailed sunfish (Masturus lanceolatus). Sunfish are one of the largest and heaviest groups of bony fish, with some members extending up to 11 feet long and weighing up to 4,400 pounds.<\/p>\n