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To understand these transient killer whales better, Josh McInnes from the University of British Columbia in Canada led a team that analysed 261 sightings of killer whales around the Monterey Submarine Canyon System collected by surveys and whale-watching vessels.
为进一步了解这些过客鲸，加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚大学的乔什·麦金尼斯(Josh McInnes)领导团队，分析了蒙特利海底峡谷系统周围由调查和观鲸船收集的261次观鲸事件。
The dataset included almost 100 predation events.
该数据集包括近100个捕食事件。
Publishing their results in the journal PLOS ONE, Mr McInnes found patterns in behaviour of outer-coast transients that differed from those of their inner-coast cousins.
麦金尼斯在《公共科学图书馆》期刊上发表了研究结果，他发现外海岸过客鲸与内海岸过客鲸的行为模式不同。
The latter ambushed harbour seals, sea lions and the occasional otter, while the former tended to perform co-ordinated dives in their hunt for larger mammalian prey.
后者伏击斑海豹、海狮，偶尔还会有水獭，而前者则倾向于团队配合，捕猎更大的哺乳动物。
Outer-coast transients appear to have developed specialised strategies—such as the repeated battering and drowning of grey whale calves—because their prey is bigger and takes more time to subdue.
外海岸过客鲸似乎有了专门的捕猎策略，比如反复击打和淹死灰鲸幼崽，因为它们的猎物更大，需要更多时间来制服。
Like most specialised killer-whale hunting behaviours, these strategies are thought to be honed, down the generations, as a form of cultural knowledge.
与大多数专门的虎鲸狩猎行为一样，这些策略被认为是一种代代相传的文化符号。
While studying the outer-coast transients, Mr McInnes also stumbled upon hints of a previously undescribed population of killer whales that were big-game hunters of an entirely different class.
在研究外海岸过客鲸时，麦金尼斯还偶然发现了一些未曾记载的虎鲸种群的线索，这些虎鲸是完全不同纲的大型猎物捕猎者。
Writing in the journal Aquatic Mammals, his team described nine offshore encounters with 49 killer whales between 1997 and 2021.
他的团队在《水生哺乳动物》杂志上撰文，描述了1997年至2021年间在海上与49头虎鲸的9次邂逅。
These killer whales were seen killing sperm whales, pygmy sperm whales and large Risso's dolphins, as well as scavenging on leatherback turtles.
这些虎鲸捕杀抹香鲸、侏儒抹香鲸和大型里索海豚，并以棱皮龟为食。
The attack on sperm whales, which can grow to around ten times larger than adult killer whales, was a particularly impressive show of predatory force.
抹香鲸的体型可以长到成年虎鲸的十倍左右，攻击抹香鲸体现了虎鲸的捕食力量，令人印象非常深刻。
On October 21st 1997, between 15 and 35 killer whales were observed hunting a herd of nine sperm whales over the course of four hours.
1997年10月21日，15到35头虎鲸在四个小时内猎杀9头抹香鲸。
The sperm whales were subjected to repeated waves of aggressive attack, injuring all of them and severely injuring several before one sperm whale was finally isolated from the herd and killed.
抹香鲸遭到一波又一波的攻击，这9头抹香鲸都受了伤，其中几头重伤，最后一头抹香鲸脱离鲸群并被杀死。
Out of the surviving sperm whales, three are thought to have died from the wounds they sustained and it is possible the entire herd later succumbed to its injuries.
在幸存的抹香鲸中，有三头因受伤而死亡，很有可能整个抹香鲸群后来都因伤势过重而死亡。
Little more than that is known about these killer whales for now, except that they are identifiable by characteristic circular scars left by bites from cookie-cutter sharks, which suggest these hyper-aggressive creatures stalk the deep waters of the north Pacific.
目前，人们对这些虎鲸知之甚少，只是可以识别出鲨鱼咬伤留下的典型圆形疤痕，从而知晓这些极具攻击性的生物在北太平洋的深水区活动。
More data, especially of the genetic kind, will need to be collected from both outer-coast transient killer whales as well as their newly discovered cousins terrorising the pelagic waters of the north Pacific, before scientists can fully describe the new ecotypes and add them to marine-biology textbooks.
在科学家们能够充分描述新的生态型并将其添加到海洋生物学教材上之前，需要从外海岸过客鲸以及新发现的威胁北太平洋中上层水域的近亲收集更多数据，尤其是遗传类型的数据。
Nevertheless, the discoveries are a reminder that biodiversity is not just about the diversity between species but also within them. Killer whales seem to exist in many more shades than just black and white.
尽管如此，这些科学发现提醒人们，生物多样性不仅指物种之间的多样性，还包括物种内部的多样性。虎鲸的颜色似乎不仅仅有黑色和白色。
