#epitaph post

A social behavior found in the Southern Resident population of killer whales (orcinus orca), allokelping is found when two killer whales hold a piece of bull kelp between their trunks, arching against each other, resulting in the rolling of the kelp between the two.

The Southern Resident population of killer whales (or, a population of killer whales in the eastern North Pacific found off of the coast of British Columbia, Oregon state, and Washington state) were the first observed. As of writing this and to our knowledge, this might be a behavior unique to this population.

This behavior is interesting because it can count as "tool usage" (building tools) due to the intentional creation of the kelp as a tool. It's also interesting as a social behavior, as Southern Resident killer whales do this consistently!

This was discovered in 2024 and released at the end of June, 2025.

Links and other information:

While this was the first article we read about it, this article is on a site that gives you "two free articles a month"; in other words, it's paywalled.

Here's a site page about the Southern Resident Killer Whales specifically, if you'd like to learn more about this population of killer whales!

Another article that we skimmed through.