21 June 2024 , 05:00
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Have you ever stopped to wonder how high a killer whale can jump?
Orcas are a toothed whale that is the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family, and they're known as killer whales who prey on larger whale species.
According to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, "a male orca can be nearly 10 metres in length and weigh 10,000kg" - so you'll likely be shocked by how high they can jump.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), popular account @amazingnature shared how high the huge creatures can leap into the air - and it's a whopping 15ft (4.572 metres).
In the thread, someone said they loved collecting "useless facts", and others claimed orcas are a "stunning display of power and beauty".
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Another wrote: "Wow, that's incredible! I can't believe they can jump that high", with one X user writing that Orcas are "majestic creatures".
According to Beemat: "Whales are the largest mammals on the planet. When whales jump completely out of the water it is referred to as 'breaching'.
"It is difficult to offer a precise height for a whale jump because they tend to avoid humans when living in the wild, but it is known that a killer whale, or orca, can jump between 10 and 15 feet out of the water.
"One of the highest whale jumps caught on film is that of an orca jumping 15 feet while chasing a dolphin."
National Geographic shares that orcas are "smart and social" and "make a wide variety of communicative sounds, and each pod has distinctive noises that its members will recognise even at a distance".
They also "use echolocation to communicate and hunt, making sounds that travel underwater until they encounter objects, then bounce back, revealing their location, size, and shape", so they're pretty cool creatures all round.