If you’re on the animal side of TikTok, you’ve surely seen videos of animals appearing to kiss. This can go from cute, with kittens grooming each other, to uncomfortably odd, with cows sucking each other’s faces. But kissing is not exclusive to land-dwelling animals. Scientists have caught orcas “French kissing” on camera in different underwater environments. And while it may come across as a little odd, it offers some insight into whale behavior.
Researchers first recorded these unusual “kisses” among orcas in captivity. One was recorded at Loro Parque, a zoo in the Canary Islands, in 2013. “In that case, one individual protruded its tongue while the other made gentle nibbling movements,” write Dr. Javier Almunia, director of Loro Parque; Johnny Van Vliet; and Debbie Bouma in a study published in Oceans. “The behavior occurred in three sequences, interrupted by the withdrawal and re-extension of the tongue, lasting a total of approximately 15 seconds.”
In a another study from 2019, where Almunia also participated, scientists looked at social behaviors of Loro Parque’s orcas. This “gentle tongue bite” was listed as an affiliative behavior, rather than a sexual or combative one. This is due to the animal touching the other’s tongue with its teeth but not biting it, and was seen among females and young orcas. It is also listed alongside behaviors like swimming together, playing, and resting alongside one another.
Since orca kisses had only been recorded in controlled environments, scientists were surprised when they accidentally recorded two orcas going at it during a snorkeling expedition by citizen scientists in a fjord in Norway. This one lasted about two minutes and sounds a bit more tame than the other example. It is described as involving “repeated episodes of gentle, face-to-face oral contact.”
Having spotted this rare behavior in orcas both in the wild and in captivity, the scientists say it suggests it was not induced by captivity-related conditions. “The observation also supports the interpretation of tongue-nibbling as a socially affiliative behavior, likely involved in reinforcing social bonds, particularly among juveniles,” write the scientists. “The prolonged maintenance of this interaction in managed populations originating from geographically distinct Atlantic and Pacific lineages further indicates its behavioral conservation across contexts.”
There are some hypotheses as to why whales may be engaging in this kind of kissing, like grooming, a kind of game, or a way of begging. But overall, it seems like a way to strengthen the bonds within their community. The mystery around it, however, spotlights how much we still have to learn about these creatures, and how it may take a larger effort to decode it all.
The scientists say, “This finding underscores the importance of underwater ethological observation in capturing cryptic social behaviors in cetaceans and illustrates the value of integrating citizen science into systematic behavioral documentation.”
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