Some killer whales have wide experience of hunters

Some killer whales have wide experience of hunters, but picky eaters. New observations of the "ice" killer roaming the waters of the Antarctic Peninsula show that they eat almost exclusively in the Weddell seals, which constitute only 15 percent of the population of seals.

Robert and John Pitman Research Centre in Durban, South-West Fisheries in La Jolla, Calif., documented how the killer whales, or orcas, along stalk their prey.

Often a whale pops up to define the Weddell seal sitting on an ice floe (pictured), the other alerts in the area. Group - up to seven have been found - then charges the ice, causing waves to wash seals at sea. Finally, the whales surround the seal, it is tedious, before they drown it by pulling on its hind flippers.

Genetic studies show these updates hunting, seal-eating killer whales are a unique species, unlike other varieties that feast primarily on fish and minke whales.