Orcas

Orcas, also known as "killer whales", can be found in every ocean from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Because of the variety of habitats, different Orca species have developed different hunting strategies and specific feeding patterns, reinforced by "group culture". Genetic evolution has followed, to best cope with different diets.

^source

Notably, North-Pacific "transient" type and Antarctic "B1" type orcas -as the Nature Communications paper linked above refers to them- feed almost exclusively on sea lions, seals and other sea mammals.

Unlike fish-eating orcas who can feed almost continuously on herring and salmon, mammal-eating orcas have to make do with infrequent meals (a dolphin a day for instance). These latter orcas have adapted to store vital metabolic components.

While the genetics of real orcas has evolved to rapidly cope with high intakes of the essential amino-acid methionine (by transforming and storing excess quantities rapidly as cysteine), steem blockchain orcas are faced with a different challenge, that of a sudden abundance of cheap STEEM which they need to store by converting excess quantities into "Steem Power"

In this paper we report live observations of the changes in steem metabolism in a dolphin-eating orca.

Methods

A relatively steem-rich dolphin was captured, tagged and released (see figure below)

After a long hunt which lasted several hours, a ruthless orca managed to catch and eat the tagged dolphin.

^{(c) Christopher Swann}

Results

Thanks to the high-tech, blockchain-based implant which equipped the dolphin, we were able to observe the metabolic changes in the orca. As we can observe in the figures below, the digestion of the dolphin leads to a surge in liquid STEEM via the "binance-hot" (and in a lesser measure "bittrex") metabolic pathways:

Novel genetic adaptations, specifically high levels of expression of the "transfer-to-vest-ase" enzyme, the orca is able to quickly metabolize the liquid STEEM upsurge by storing it as "Steem Power" (i.e. pure fat)

The end result is a healthy (if somewhat fat) orca which managed to avoid letting any dolphin calorie go to waste

Conclusion

In this paper we detail live observations from the steem ecosystem. By tagging a dolphin which is subsequently consumed by a orca, we were able to measure the variations in metabolite levels in the body of the orca.

We report that, subsequent to digesting the dolphin, the "binance-hot" and "bittrex" metabolic pathways lead to an upsurge in liquid STEEM in orca's body. High expression of the "transfer-to-vest-ase" enzyme (a novel genetic adaptation observed in this orca subspecies), the killer whale transforms the steem into "steem power" which is easier to store and can help the animal traverse longer spells without another dolphin to eat.

This research work has been sponsored by the @lux-witness Foundation for Steem science, please donate a witness approval by clicking on the link below!

References

1. "Genome-culture coevolution promotes rapid divergence of killer whale ecotypes" Foote, A.D. et. al. Nature Communications volume 7, 11693 (2016)

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