Pair Of Killer Whales Take Turns Head-Butting Dolphin Out Of The Water

Didn't anyone teach them not to play with their food? There aren't many predators out in the deep blue sea that go after dolphins. One that does though? The killer whale. Officially known as orcas, these large sea creatures (they range from 20 to 30 feet depending on gender) earned the nickname of "Killer" because ancient sailors used to witness them taking down comparatively smaller - yet still sizable - whales. In fact, the only predators that whales have are bigger whales (typically orcas) and human beings. So killer whales basically own the ocean, and can do whatever they want, whenever they want. That's evident in the video below, which shows a pair of orcas basically playing ping-pong with an innocent dolphin. And they weren't just playing around with the dolphin. As horrible as it sounds, they were actually slowly taking down the swimming mammal, which was explained in the post's caption: "Using their superior size and weight to slam into their prey and knock them out is one of the main methods orcas (killer whales) employ when hunting agile animals like dolphins. It immobilizes them quickly and is an efficient way of making the kill... Having a large powerful body combined with the typical intelligence and teamwork of dolphins makes orcas the most lethal predators that swim the world's oceans. Even the mighty blue whale, the largest animal to ever exist, is not immune to orcas as there are documented cases of them killing adult blue whales." https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8i0VBWKFWv/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link Pretty brutal way to go out for that dolphin. And if you saw that caption, you are probably surprised to hear that orcas actually aren't whales - they're dolphins. To bring it full circle, the nickname they were originally given by sailors was "whale killers," and the pseudonym slowly morphed into the "killer whales," even though they aren't whales. Now you can say you learned something today...