Read more about what whales eat. Smart cookie preferences. Change cookie preferences Accept all cookies. Skip to content. Quick question What do killer whales eat? The largest orca ever recorded was a staggering 32 feet 9. That's longer and heavier than most motorhomes. Orcas are known for their long dorsal fin the fin on the animal's back and black-and-white coloring.
The black-and-white coloring helps to camouflage them by obscuring their outline in the water. Just behind the dorsal fin is a patch of gray called a "saddle" — because it looks like a riding saddle. An orca's body is cylindrical and tapers at each end to form a hydrodynamic shape.
Orcas have massive teeth, which can grow up to 4 inches 10 centimeters long, according to National Geographic. Orcas are apex predators, at the top of the food chain. No animals hunt orcas except for humans. Killer whales feed on many different types of prey, including fish, seals , sea birds and squid. They can also take down whales larger than themselves, such as minke whales, and they are the only animal known to predate on great white sharks, according to The Natural History Museum in London.
Killer whales have even been reported to kill swimming deer and moose , according to a chapter on orcas in " Primates and Cetaceans " Springer, Orcas use many different techniques to catch prey. Sometimes they beach themselves to catch seals on land, jumping from the water onto land. They can use echolocation to identify their prey by creating sounds, or sound waves, that travel through the water.
These waves echo off objects, including prey, which the orcas can use to locate them, according to SeaWorld. There is no record of an orca ever killing a human in the wild. This is because humans are not part of their natural diet. Occasionally, an orca may mistake a human for something they do eat, such as a seal. In , an orca was caught on camera charging at a surfer during the Lofoten Masters surfing competition in Norway. The orca seemed to pull out of the attack just before making contact.
The Norwegian Orca Survey said in a Facebook post that the orca likely realized the surfer was not a seal at the very last second. In , a year-old boy was "bumped" by a killer whale near Ketchikan, Alaska, in what may have been an aborted attack — similar to the surfer in Norway — or simply curiosity on behalf of the orca, according to the Associated Press, via The Seattle Times.
The Associated Press reported that a surfer was bitten in California in the early s, which is the only relatively well-documented case of a wild orca actually biting a human. Orcas in captivity, however, have attacked and killed people. Although wild killer whales do not intentionally harm people, they have attacked boats. These dolphins killer whales actually belong to the dolphin family have quite a diverse diet. In most cases, their diet is largely dependent on the region they live in and the food that lives in their local environment.
The primary diet of most killer whales consists of various fish such as herring, cod, hake, and several other small aquatic species. In some cases, they may also eat squid and octopus. Killer whales that live near land have also been known to attack and eat other marine mammals. Some of these mammals include seals, sea lions, walruses, penguins, seabirds, sea otters, and even whales.
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