Taking a bite out of anything usually leaves a mark, but did you know these can be used to tell us more about how much, how often and how severe the attacks were? Researchers can also look at differences between species, and if there are differences in how the killer whales attacked the whales, by looking at the location/placement of the bite mark.  That is exactly Corsi et al. (2021) did in this interesting paper we are covering this week.  The flukes are the most common place for these attacks to occur. The animals almost always try to flee first (so think about a dog nipping at your heels), but if they fight back, they use their tail which is very very powerful - either way the tail is the body part that is in the path of the attacking mouth.  They looked at rake marks and fluke mutilation (missing portions of the flukes) on photos of individual Gray, Blue and Humpback whales in the Eastern North Pacific that were attacked by the marine mammal eating Biggs (or transient) killer whales.  Join us to find out what they learned, how there were differences between the species, and how photo-ID is more than just IDing individuals; it can tell us so much more about these species and the threats they face.

Paper link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.12863  This one is not open access, so you will need to contact the author for pdf print, email is found at that link.

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