THAT the best form of defence is attack is an old maxim. In reality, it is frequently untrue; running away is a far better option. But it seems to be the approach taken by pilot whales when faced with a pod of killer whales which are looking for dinner.
That, at least, is the conclusion of Matthew Bowers of Duke University in North Carolina. He came to it as the result of a study, just published in Experimental Biology, which he and his team conducted on pilot whales (pictured) and Risso’s dolphins—two closely related species of small cetacean. He knew that killer whales, which are partial to snacking on both of these species, chat with one another during the normal course of events, even if they tend to stay quiet when making an attack. He therefore speculated that potential prey would react to distant killer-whale communications, it being risky to do nothing. What he did not know was what the reaction would be.
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