Think I'll give that whale watching cruise a miss. Orcas swimming off the Iberian Peninsula have sunk a third boat in what marine biologists are calling a learned behavior.

(via Live Science) Think I'll give that whale watching cruise a miss. Orcas swimming off the Iberian Peninsula have sunk a third boat in what marine biologists are calling a learned behavior.

Three orcas (Orcinus orca), also known as killer whales, struck the yacht on the night of May 4 in the Strait of Gibraltar, off the coast of Spain, and pierced the rudder. "There were two smaller and one larger orca," skipper Werner Schaufelberger told the German publication Yacht. "The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side."

This follows on the heels of more fatalities last year in New Zealand when either a sperm or humpback whale rammed into a whale sighting boat. None of the five killed persons was found overboard, so the sheer force somehow killed them while on board. Here's The Guardian's report.

According to New Scientist, this behavior may make orcas the first non-human species whose evolution is being be driven by culture.