Why Orcas Keep Breaking Boat Rudders

Orcas have damaged more than 250 boats off Gibraltar since 2020 — and the best explanation for it starts with a milk bottle in 1921. Thirteen cases of animal culture: behaviours invented once, by one animal, that spread through a population faster than any gene could. Cockatoos opening wheelie bins across Sydney. Great tits taught an arbitrary puzzle solution and released into the woods. Sponging dolphins in Shark Bay, chimpanzee tool dialects across Africa, a humpback song replaced across an entire ocean in two years, and sperm whales that cut nineteenth-century whalers' strike rates by 58% in five years. Documented cases stay sourced; the Law of the Tongue and the hundredth monkey are told as what they are — a legend and a myth. At number one, the Iberian killer whales: 39 animals, five competing explanations, and no verdict, because there isn't one yet. Watch next: "13 Animals That Lie for a Living". #orcas #animalbehavior #wildlifemysteries Chapters: 0:00 The Slack Wheel 1:33 What These Cases Share 2:44 Inheritance Without Genes 3:33 13: Sydney Bin Raiders 4:55 12: The Milk Bottle Fad 6:25 11: A Planted Fashion 8:04 10: Imo and the Potato 9:49 9: Migration Is Learned 11:08 8: Dolphins With Sponges 11:57 7: Chimpanzee Dialects 12:59 6: A Song Replaced Overnight 14:17 5: The Impossible Odds Ratio 15:52 4: The Law of the Tongue 17:28 3: Whales Learned About Harpoons 19:21 2: The Salmon Hat 20:33 1: Gibraltar's Rudder Breakers 21:58 Five Competing Explanations 23:24 What the Pattern Shows 24:41 Thirty-Nine Whales, One Trick Image credits: "Eurasian Blue Tit 2025 04 07" by Alexis Lours, CC BY 4.0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... "Killer whale squeleton" by Fanny Schertzer, CC BY-SA 3.0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...