$\""Orcas\"$ <\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section>

These wise old matriarchs are living libraries for the environmental and cultural knowledge that keeps their clan alive. Orcas in captivity have been shown to have phenomenal photographic memories, remembering testing patterns after 25 years.<\/p>\n

Orca brains are the heaviest on the planet, with a proportionally bigger cerebrum than humans. Female orcas have a higher brain-to-body ratio than males, giving them even more computational power \u2013 and helping matriarchs recall fishing spots.<\/p>

Why do orca whales go through the menopause?<\/h2>\n
The close family relationship orca matriarchs have with their sons is the key to their menopausal riddle. Orcas are unique amongst social mammals in that neither sons nor daughters permanently leave their birth group. This means that orca females end up competing across the generations for the extra resources needed during pregnancy and lactation.<\/p>\n
So orca matriarchs stop breeding at about 40 years old and invest in their sons instead, whose offspring will be born outside of the family group to unrelated females and therefore less of a drain on pod resources.<\/p>\n
Whether this familial conflict existed amongst early humans remains a mystery. But orca males are known for being massive \u2018mummies\u2019 boys\u2019, kept alive by their post-menopausal matriarch\u2019s hunting handouts.<\/p>\n
Main image: Orca pod. \u00a9 Getty<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n
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By Lucy Cooke Published: Saturday, 19 February 2022 at 12:00 am It\u2019s an odd thing to find kinship with an orca, or killer whale (Orcinus orca). The most souped-up member of the dolphin family is a nine-tonne apex predator that cunningly hunts most marine animals. Not even great white sharks are safe. Our lives couldn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":250,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/02\/do-orcas-go-through-the-menopause.jpg",2121,1414,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/02\/do-orcas-go-through-the-menopause-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/02\/do-orcas-go-through-the-menopause-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/02\/do-orcas-go-through-the-menopause-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/02\/do-orcas-go-through-the-menopause-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/02\/do-orcas-go-through-the-menopause-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/02\/do-orcas-go-through-the-menopause-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Lucy Cooke Published: Saturday, 19 February 2022 at 12:00 am It\u2019s an odd thing to find kinship with an orca, or killer whale (Orcinus orca). The most souped-up member of the dolphin family is a nine-tonne apex predator that cunningly hunts most marine animals. Not even great white sharks are safe. Our lives couldn\u2019t…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/249"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}