Humans have long known that orcas are highly advanced creatures with profound social intelligence, but new research suggests that they may even be more sophisticated than we realized: Scientists have discovered that orcas understand and honor the concept of a birthday weekend.
Extraordinary!
According to a paper published this week by marine biologists at the University of Oregon, orcas are able to not only acknowledge one another’s birthdays, but also block off the nearest Friday-through-Sunday for celebrations, fully understanding that they will be obligated to shower the birthday whale in attention for the entire weekend or else risk hurting their feelings.
“These animals have a keen understanding of the need to feel special on one’s birthday, and they dutifully go out of their way to celebrate fellow pod members’ birthdays for whole entire weekends, even though it’s kind of a big hassle and many of the orcas would much rather spend their Saturdays and Sundays on their own unwinding from the long week,” wrote lead researcher Leon Meyer, adding that there’s an implicit expectation among pod members to lavish birthday whales with celebratory fin bumps, extra seal meat, and gifts of shiny bits of litter for pretty much half of their birthday week. “We’ve long known orcas to be incredibly intelligent and social creatures, but not to the degree that they would know how to guilt their friends and loved ones into giving them gifts of kelp on their birthday, and then more kelp on the day after, and even more kelp on the following day, ultimately wringing three days of love and adulation out of what by all means should’ve just been a half-hour shindig on their actual birthday.”
Meyer and his team believe that the birthday weekend practice evolved out of the orcas’ natural desire for attention and love of gifts, much as humans developed our parallel practice. “Our research team observed orcas becoming visibly despondent the Mondays after their birthday weekends came to a close, displaying droopy fins, gloomily blowing bubbles, and even expressing their desolation through bleak groan-like vocalizations,” Meyer continued. “Like humans, they yearn to feel loved and appreciated to a sometimes unreasonable degree, especially when it’s their birthday. These incredible, party-loving creatures are more like us than we could’ve ever previously fathomed.”
So fascinating!
While there’s still a great deal we have yet to learn about orcas and their behaviors, it’s truly a delight knowing that these amazing creatures go out of their way to make their fellow pod members feel loved and cherished on their special days. Share if it inspires you knowing that these remarkable underwater giants celebrate birthday weekends the same way we do!
