Wild orcas spend as much time socializing as they do resting, nearly 15 percent of their day. Subpods often travel together or meet up to visit or to take advantage of good fishing. At play, whales swirl and roll together, slap the surface with their paddle-like pectoral fins and festoon their flukes with shiny kelp garlands. Killer whales of all ages get to feeling sexy, even when not mating. An orca penis looks like an enormous wriggling earthworm, and they are frequent sights at many social gatherings.
Wild orcas spend much of their day socializing and playing.
Some young males sometimes hang out with other pods. But researchers have never seen one of these orcas leave its pod permanently to adopt another. This is the ultimate nuclear family. The closest land version of orca social structure is probably that of the African elephants, animals which are also long-lived and matriarchal, although bull elephants are more independent and aggressive than male killer whales.