Orcas Are Sporting Salmon Hats. Once more.

I’ve heard of a coonskin cap, however that is ridiculous: A whale-watcher not too long ago noticed an orca donning a lifeless salmon as a hat. What’s much more exceptional? The style assertion seems to be the resurrection of a development final seen within the orca group again within the ’80s.

The salmon hat development goes again to 1987, when a feminine within the Puget Sound was noticed with a lifeless salmon on her nostril. According to Atlas Obscura, the fad unfold all through the feminine’s pod and over the subsequent six weeks the development was noticed amongst people in all three pods within the space. However shortly thereafter, the development stopped. Thirty seven years later, it seems it might be rearing its ugly—er, fishy—head once more.

The trendy whale seen donning the salmon is J27 Blackberry, a member of the Puget Sound’s J pod. It was noticed with its fishy style assertion on October 25. In a picture snapped that day, the again finish of the fish—on high of the mammal—is seen simply above the water line. Based on the Orca Conservancy, J27 Blackberry is a male born in 1991 that’s “probably the most common Southern Resident killer whales” and has a detailed relationship together with his sister, J31, and youthful brother, J39. The siblings misplaced their mom, J11, in 2008.

“It’s true that orcas have social traits, and that within the late Eighties this specific group of orcas was noticed to have interaction in a short-lived development of  ‘sporting’ lifeless salmon on their heads,” stated Stephanie Raymond, a program supervisor for the Orca Community, in an electronic mail to Gizmodo. “Extra not too long ago, a single photograph of an grownup male orca with a salmon perched on his head has sparked a firestorm of memes and media consideration concerning the retro development returning.”

“If the salmon ‘sporting’ habits exhibited by the whale identified to native whale fans as J27 Blackberry was, the truth is, a revival of the outdated development, there could be ample documentation of that,” Raymond added.

Based on the marine conservation group ORCA, humpback whales are often noticed with seaweed on their heads—maybe as a result of it feels good. However humpback whales don’t eat kelp, and orcas do eat salmon. So the current recognizing—although it was solely noticed in a single particular person—is extra equal to a human sporting spaghetti and meatballs on their head than, say, dental floss.

These are heady days for an orca. Final yr, the whales made headlines for attacking boats, and this year capsized a 49-foot yacht. This yr, a few of the apex predators have been spotted hunting dolphins off the coast of Chile, one particular person off South Africa ate a great white shark in two minutes, and one other pod off Mexico learned to hunt whale sharks, the biggest fish on the planet.

As a result of the development resurfaced (no pun meant) within the Puget Sound—identical as earlier than—it’s doable that a few of the people who skilled the fad the primary time are concerned with its resurgence, as one researcher told New Scientist. Nevertheless, J27 Blackberry was solely born 4 years after the development was final seen, so it’s unclear how the habits could have been adopted by the 33-year-old cetacean.