• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Sperm Whales Thwart Fatal Orca Attack With Unusual Defence: “Cloud Of Diarrhea”

March 23, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

A poonado of epic proportions may have saved some sperm whales from a fatal interaction with a pod of orcas off Western Australia’s southern coast. The highly scatological wildlife encounter was the first time this year that sperm whales had been seen in the area, and they put on a display nobody was expecting.

The perilous event was witnessed by marine biologist Jennah Tucker on board a Naturaliste Charters trip with other whale watchers and photographers. They were observing a pod of orcas when the group started surging forward in a way that indicated they were pursuing something.

Advertisement

The object of the hunt was a pod of sperm whales. One of the four was much smaller than the others, and the group appeared exhausted and distressed as they huddled closely. As predators in their own right, and big ones at that, it was thought at one time that sperm whales weren’t vulnerable to orca predation. However, orcas have since been spotted attacking sperm whales, seeming to favor females with young calves.



The sperm whales were thrashing their tails against the orcas’ advances as the team looked on. Then, “a large dark bubble rose to the surface amongst the huddle, believed at the time to have been blood,” explained Tucker in a blog post shared with IFLScience.

That cloud was later confirmed to be whale poop based on the photos and videos that were captured during the dramatic encounter. An explosive defense mechanism that sperm whales are known for.

Advertisement

“Sperm whales are known to defecate when threatened, referred to as emergency or defensive defection,” explained Tucker. “The cloud of diarrhoea created when the whale waves its tail through its poo acts to deter predators and in this case, seemed to work! Given their faeces appear reddish in colour, due to their diet consisting of 90% squid, it’s no surprise it was easily mistaken for blood.”

sperm whales under attack by orcas

The whales were in distress, so they unleashed a poonado.

Image courtesy of Naturaliste Charters

It’s no mean feat to pursue the ocean’s largest toothed predator into the shallows, and the orcas put up a good fight. Whatever dirty tactics they’re open to exploring, however, don’t seem to include getting a face full of feces.

The orcas involved in the fray were actually sighted carrying some kind of mystery meat in their mouths, but it remains unclear if their hunt was successful. They may have been stealing chunks of giant squid from the sperm whales, something that’s been documented among these animals before. 

As for the events of this fateful first return for sperm whales? The only thing that we know went down with absolute certainty is a shit-ton of whale poop.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. ARK Invest’s Wood expects market rotation back to growth stocks
  2. Most Plant-Based Milks Are Poorer In Key Micronutrients Than Dairy
  3. The Physicist And Mathematician Who Claims He Can Beat Roulette
  4. Only 1 Percent Of Chemicals Have Been Discovered – How Can We Find The Rest?

Source Link: Sperm Whales Thwart Fatal Orca Attack With Unusual Defence: “Cloud Of Diarrhea”

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Female Jumping Spiders Of Two Species Prefer The Sexy Red Males Of One, Leading To Hybridization
  • Why Is It So Difficult To Find New Moons In The Solar System?
  • New “Oxygen-Breathing” Crystal Could Recharge Fuel Cells And More
  • Some Gut Bacteria Cause Insomnia While Others Protect Against It, 400,000-Person Study Argues
  • Neanderthals And Homo Sapiens Got It On 100,000 Years Earlier Than We Thought
  • “Womb Of The Universe”: Native American Tribal Elders Help Archaeologists Decipher Ancient Rock Art In Missouri Cave
  • 16,000-Year-Old Paintings Suggest Prehistoric Humans Risked Their Lives To Enter “Shaman Training Cave”
  • Final Gasps Of A Dying Star Seen Through A Record-Breaking 130 Years Of Data
  • COVID-19 “Vaccine Alternative” Injection Could Be On Fast-Track To Approval From FDA
  • New Jersey Officials Investigate Possible First Locally Acquired Malaria Case Since 1991
  • First-of-Its-Kind Bright Orange Nurse Shark Recorded Off Costa Rica Makes History
  • JWST Spots Tiny New Moon Just Outside Uranus’s Rings, Bringing Total to 29
  • New Fossil Trackways Reveal Fish Left The Ocean 10 Million Years Earlier Than Thought
  • Thousands Of Bumblebee Catfish Seen Literally Climbing The Walls For The First Time Ever
  • Massive Hydrogen-Rich Hydrothermal System Discovered In Pacific 100 Times Larger Than Atlantic’s “Lost City”
  • World’s Driest Hot Desert Set To See Major Desert Bloom Next Month, The First Since 2022
  • New 3D Reconstructions Show Massive Sauropods Could Move Their Tails Like Your Pet Doggo
  • POV: You Strapped A Camera To A Seabird’s Butt And Discovered They Prefer To Poop While Flying
  • Enceladus Creates An Unlikely Rainbow Across One of Saturn’s Rings, Puzzling Astronomers
  • Should We All Be Journaling? Here’s What Psychologists Say
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version