The human-like characteristic of Orcas – the killer whale species which enables it to stop reproduction after crossing a certain age limit is quite mysterious and since centuries, the ecologists and scientists across the world are trying to solve this mystery. However, finally a group of scientists has come up with the precise answer to the question – “Why Killer Whales Have Menopause”.
According to the scientific research report, published in the journal ‘Current Biology’ over this weekend, younger females from Orcas Species are more likely to mate and have children in contrast to their adult counterparts. The researchers, during the study, found that this tendency of menopause holds over the mother orcas from having babies, which sequentially make them more concentrated on raising the younger whales of their families instead.
The researchers, for concluding this mystery, took the help of the oldest Orcas Whale. In the report given by ‘The Atlantic’, the researcher described the story of the Orcas killer whale called Granny, who was mission since past three months. Post of her missing, the scientists believed to be dead. Granny is one of the 24 killer whales found in the Pacific Northwest group and was codenamed as J-pod by the scientists. All of the 24 whales were involved in the research since more than four decades.
However, before the last sighting of Granny in October 2016, she was often dappled and was being easily identified because of her unique physical constructions. Though the exact age of Granny is still unclear, analysts believe her to be 74 years old, or maybe around 105 years at the time she vanished.
But surprisingly, it is not the age of Granny which hyped the scientists, but rather she is a solid proof that the killer whales have menopause-like humans have. In 40-plus years, when J-pod started grabbing eyeballs of the scientists, Granny never found to be pregnant. It means she is yet to deliver a baby, as animals used to give birth in their old or close-to-death time.
According to the research paper issued in the Current Biology, “Why females of some genus die away ovulation at the end of their existence is a venerable evolutionary enigma. The health advantages of the post-reproductive section might help some creatures to be eligible for menopause, but the enormities of these benefits seem to be not enough to give details about the timing of menopause.”