Orcinology (KILLER WHALES) with Jorge Vélez-Juarbe

Jorge Vélez-Juarbe (0:00)

Oh, hey.

SPEAKER_2 (0:00)

Okay.

Alie Ward (0:01)

First up top, if you're hearing this before Thursday, October 15th at noon Eastern Standard Time, this is a quick invite to a free livestream I'm doing. Again, Thursday, October 15th, 2026 at noon Eastern.

So that's like New York time. And it is so important to have you there. I hope you can come. You may have heard that Drexel University in Philadelphia has made this devastating decision to close the Academy of Natural Sciences to the public in Philly. Imagine your local science museum, beloved for generations, just straight up closing.

So local activists like my friend Dr. Sarah McAnulty, you know her as a squid expert from the toothology episode and the founder of Skype Scientist, and Karina Newsome from the Wildlife Biology episode, as well as Dr. Jessica Ware from the Dragonfly episode. Plus several other psychomers are holding a livestream on Thursday to chat about how the public can advocate for this really important museum to stay open. So come and spend lunch with us this coming Thursday, noon Eastern time via Zoom. And the Zoom RSVP link is in our show notes. You can also go to savetheacademy.org and go to the events page and you can see what's going on. So please come to that. It would be amazing to have you there. All right. See you Thursday.

Oh, hey, it's the lady doing the show opening, Alie Ward. And yes, of course, obligatory, we have a whale of an episode for you. It is a killer. It's Spooktober.

Let's chat about the marine mammal that wants to see you dead because they are ruthless, bloodthirsty sadists. I mean, aren't they though? Should we even call them killer whales? Let's get into it with the associate curator of Mammalogy and Marine Mammals at my home away from home, The Natural History Museum of LA County. I love it there. So this person got their PhD at Howard University studying the paleobiology of cetaceans and has worked at the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. We met up at LA's Natural History Museum a few weeks back, and he ushered me into his bone-filled office with a smile. He was wearing a short sleeve, chambray blue shirt and some black thick-framed glasses. He has one little Superman curl gracing his forehead. I had barely turned on my recorder, and it was already good. Big jerk dolphins.

Jorge Vélez-Juarbe (2:26)

Yeah. I saw you see that.

Alie Ward (2:30)

Just dropping sound bites before I'm even rolling, Jorge. So we'll hear more opinions and facts in a moment. But first, thank you so much to patrons of the show who submitted questions via patreon.com/ologies and support the show for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you to everyone in Ologies Merch from ologiesmerch.com. If you are opposed to hearing swear words in our episodes, you can always enjoy Smology's episodes, S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S.

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101 Weasels in a Trench Coat, pop me in the pocket. Let's go for a drive. We got a lot to cover. But first, thank you to sponsors of Ologies who make it possible for us to donate every week to a different cause.

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Alie Ward (4:40)

Okay, onward. Let's talk killer whales.

Jorge Vélez-Juarbe (4:45)

Scary.

Alie Ward (4:46)

We can call them orcas too. So the name orca, it comes from the Latin for a large bellied pot. Kind of rude. Some people call them grampus, and I'd like to bring that back. There is evidence that killer whales was accidentally flipped.