Enrique Marcarian/Reuters
- An orca species that hunted alongside humans for thousands of years is likely locally extinct.
- The finding is thanks to DNA analysis of a 100-year-old skeleton and knowledge from the Thaua people.
- Orcas swam alongside Thaua hunters and led them to whales for thousands of years.
For thousands of years, the Thaua people — members of the Yuin nation in eastern Australia — had an exceptional whale hunting strategy, a new study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Heredity described.
Thaua hunters learned that they could work together with orcas in Australia's Twofold Bay, helping lead them straight to their prey. Some Thaua hunters even sang to the orcas to encourage them to herd whales inland.
After the hunters killed the whales, the orcas would eat only the lips and tongue, while the hunters would take the rest, Steven Holmes, a Thaua Traditional Custodian and coauthor of the study, wrote. The practice was called the "Law of the Tongue," according to Holmes.
This relationship lasted for generations until the 1930s — about 150 years after British colonizers arrived in Australia — when the orcas vanished from the region.
It was long unclear what happened to the orcas. But thanks to DNA analysis of a 23-foot-long orca skeleton from almost 100 years ago and knowledge from the Thaua people, scientists now believe the species is locally extinct.
Isabella Reeves, a doctoral student who led the study, told Live Science that it's unclear exactly how the relationship between the Thaua whalers and orcas first began — but it likely existed for thousands of years.
"I think what I've learned from killer whales is that they're curious, they can be strategic, and when they want something, they know how to get it," Reeves said.
The skeleton Reeves studied was named Old Tom. He had served as a hunting companion all the way until his death, Holmes wrote.
"My people had a long-lasting friendship with the beowa in Eden, especially Old Tom," Holmes wrote. "My Nan, Catherine Holmes nee Brierly, told us about her great Grandfather, Budginbro, who along with other Thaua, would swim with Old Tom, holding on to his dorsal fin. My ancestors were never hurt or injured."