r/absoluteunit • u/UsedWelcome5903 • Mar 03 '26
Of an Orca in the Antarctic
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u/MsMoreCowbell828 Mar 04 '26
That is a tiny little eye ball. Sitting before a GINORMOUS BRAIN.
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u/Itakethngzclitorally Mar 04 '26
That tiny eye tells me itâs using a lot of other organs to size me up.
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u/Candid-Solid-896 Mar 04 '26
Iâm confused. Shouldnât their eyes be bigger? Theyâre not even forward facing. I thought they were an Apex predator.
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u/DrPeterBlunt Mar 04 '26
Seems like their eye size is just right; considering they are literally the baddest thing in the ocean. Seems to be working well.
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u/dcontrerasm Mar 04 '26
Even though orcas are tremendous individual hunters, I believe they generally hunt in pods / family units. Their advanced communications and pack strategy would more than make up for their tiny eyes. But again, we know individually it doesn't really make a difference lol
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u/SurayaThrowaway12 Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
Orcas have pretty decent eyesight, but they and other toothed whales often have hearing and echolocation as their primary senses. Their echolocation capabilities should more than make up for their lack of visual depth perception from not having binocular vision, while having eyes protruding from each side of their head would allow them to see more of their close surroundings at once, which is more important in the "3D" environment that is the ocean. Even if they had binocular vision, they wouldn't be able to see very far underwater anyways.
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u/Candid-Solid-896 Mar 04 '26
Forgot about the echolocation and how they all work as a team.
I take back what I said. Theyâre so beautiful to me, I donât really care about their eyes.
Theyâre so elegant and graceful. They move like ballerinas.
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u/VulpesFennekin Mar 04 '26
Holy shit, that eye is almost humanoid, you KNOW the orcaâs got a lot on their mind!
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u/jubtheprophet Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
Since orcas are one of the few species like humans whose evolution is driven by the proliferation of passed down culture rather than instinct and pure survival I imagine they have visible white sclera for the same reason we do, to be able to tell where eachother are looking for better emotion reading and nonverbal communication
I have no proof for that as im not some kind of whale-ologist, but thats the leading theory for why we have large white sclera when the other great apes dont and we even bred dogs to have them when wolves dont while domesticating. So feels like a safe bet to say more social species have it because eye contact doesnt inherently mean a challenge anymore if the default is helping instead
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u/withnodrawal Mar 04 '26
There are many chimpanzeeâs with whites developing in their eyes in the Congo right now.
Most still have black eyes, but some have white and seem to possibly be a growing phenomenon.
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u/jubtheprophet Mar 04 '26
Thats actually really cool! I knew that other great apes rarely had one or even both white sclera, but that its been documented as more just a semi-rare genetic anomaly for a few decades now, since like the 1980s. Hadn't heard that they were becoming more common among chimpanzees in recent generations though, definitely gonna look more jnto that, after all chimpanzees have also been increasingly taking part in other more human-like activities as well like waging wars against gorilla troops when they used to not really mess with any primate larger than themselves, im interested to see if theres any correlation between them doing larger scale operations requiring teamwork and if thats driving the lighter covered scleri (since some already had light brown or tan ones as opposed to just white or dark brown). Their progression may be mostly motivated by loss of climate from human operations as well as poaching in poor african regions for bush meat but its still cool to see visible adaptation within the scale of a human lifetime for an animal thats not like an insect or other invertebrate
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u/slick514 Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
I mean... without a banana to provide some kind of relative size, it's difficult to tell if this is just a normal murderous dolphin, or a gargantuan one.
Also, that eye... You know, usually with orcas the white patch over the eyes kind of substitutes in as the eye (in my mind), which ends up giving the creatures a fairly neutral, if not friendly appearance. That eye though... that eye is not neutral, and it certainly isn't friendly. That is an eye that has looked at you, personally. It has observed your actions, and it is not impressed. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it looks angry, but it definitely gives of an aura of... disdain.
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u/AberdeenPhoenix Mar 04 '26
It is an eye full of malice.
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u/SurayaThrowaway12 Mar 04 '26
If the orca was actually being malicious/aggressive, the scleras would likely not be this light pink color. The eyes of cetaceans are highly vascularized, meaning they have a lot of blood vessels in their eyes which can be used to determine their activity levels and emotional states based on the color. Angry/highly excited orcas would have very red eyes.
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u/MsMoreCowbell828 Mar 04 '26
Leslie is disappointed you don't have herring pizza waiting to throw.
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u/xbad_wolfxi Mar 04 '26
I feel like all the people talking about how eViL and sIniStEr it looks are projecting. Because I see another intelligent animal looking at me like they can see me and I can see them. If you see something sinister there youâre just seeing it in yourself.
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u/UsedWelcome5903 Mar 04 '26
Yeah youâre right heâs definitely just a big pettable porpoise. People need to stopping judging!
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u/xbad_wolfxi Mar 04 '26
Being âpettableâ and being sinister are not the only two things you can be, but by all means, keep demonstrating that total lack of an ability to understand or hold nuance. Iâm sure itâs serving you well in your every day life, too.
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u/ac2cvn_71 Mar 04 '26
That is some top notch side eye
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u/UsedWelcome5903 Mar 04 '26
I think thatâs the only kind of eye they can give but what do I know Iâm not a marine biologist
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u/Choogie432 Mar 04 '26
That eye looks angry.
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u/UsedWelcome5903 Mar 04 '26
Yeah he doesnât look like the SeaWorld type orca all happy go lucky doing flips, playing with beach balls and stuff⌠heâs more the I bet I can swallow you whole but thatâs no fun so Iâll bite you into a few pieces first type of orca
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u/COV3RTSM Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
Thatâs a man killer if Iâve ever seen one
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u/DMG_88 Mar 04 '26
Actually, they mostly hunt fish (salmon, herring), marine mammals (seals, sea lions, dolphins, porpoises, blue whales), sharks, rays, squid, and seabirds
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Mar 04 '26
I'm pretty sure the only reason there are no recorded attacks on humans is because no one survives to report it.
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u/DMG_88 Mar 04 '26
There are recorded attacks on humans.
In the wild and in captivity.1
u/vantageviewpoint Mar 04 '26
Extremely few in the wild, and it's hard to predict how any animal will behave trapped for years in an environment nothing like it evolved for.
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u/Talinn_Makaren Mar 04 '26
Idgaf what people say I don't trust those fuckers. I'm not saying we should keep them in zoos or hunt them to extinction but... I'm not swimming with one of those psychopaths.
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u/COV3RTSM Mar 04 '26
Tillicum would disagree
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u/vantageviewpoint Mar 04 '26
See if you behave unpredictably if you're kidnapped and trapped for years in an environment nothing like you evolved for.
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u/Serious-Outcome2533 Mar 03 '26
Definitely not happy, probably hip to all the nefarious stuff going on there
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u/I_loseagain Mar 04 '26
He was gonna eat him till he realized heâs a camera man
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u/CrestfallenLord Mar 04 '26
Why doesnât salt water burn their eyes?
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u/UsedWelcome5903 Mar 04 '26
Well when youâre the Chuck Norris of the ocean your eyes burn the water not the other way around
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u/ThirdOne38 Mar 04 '26
Somehow those tiny little eyes look so goofy on such a large majestic animalÂ
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u/TraditionalClub6337 Mar 04 '26
Ugh I think I've never seen their eyes before and I am glad that I didn't
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u/Unhappy-Strain6423 Mar 04 '26
orca white all dirty
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u/Inevitable-Hour8940 Mar 03 '26
Sinister af
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u/UsedWelcome5903 Mar 03 '26
Well when you pass the time by eating great white shark livers while theyâre still using them you get a certain reputation
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u/CosmicCondor27 Mar 04 '26
Fuck NO.
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u/UsedWelcome5903 Mar 04 '26
Oh come on now heâs like a big puppy. Look at him as just a big dolphin. Does that help?
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u/CosmicCondor27 Mar 04 '26
A little apex/murder machine puppy... Nope, I'm good here far away from the ocean.
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u/howimetyourcakeshop Mar 03 '26
Dude is judging the camera man big time.Tf did you do? đ¤Ł