Interactions Between Killer Whales () and Neonate Long-Finned Pilot Whales () off South Iceland.

Cetacean interactions can be diverse and complex, spanning agonistic to affiliative behaviors. While killer whales are known for complex hunting strategies and a wide range of prey worldwide, they also engage in various non-predatory interspecific interactions. This study describes two encounters off south Iceland, on the 23rd of June 2022 and the 20th of June 2023, where neonate pilot whales were observed with killer whale groups.

Kinship clustering within an ecologically diverse killer whale metapopulation.

Metapopulation dynamics can be shaped by foraging ecology, and thus be sensitive to shifts in prey availability. Genotyping 204 North Atlantic killer whales at 1346 loci, we investigated whether spatio-temporal population structuring is linked to prey type and distribution. Using population-based methods (reflecting evolutionary means), we report a widespread metapopulation connected across ecological groups based upon nuclear genome SNPs, yet spatial structuring based upon mitogenome haplotypes.