My favourite animal.

Orcinus orca.

Majestic, powerful, and smart as fuck.

Nicknamed "Wolves of the Sea", orcas travel in pods and hunt as a team. They are apex predators in every sense of the word; their prey ranges from small fish to other marine mammals (typically sea lions, seals, and porpoises, but they've been known to take down larger baleen whales), to large sharks.

Their socieities are complex and sophisticated - typically matrilineal, with hunting techniques and vocal behaviours that tend to be unique to each pod, and passed across generations.

They even have dialects. Fucking dialects. Pod-specific, with call patterns and structure distinctive within matrilines. Calves vocalisations are similar to that of their mother's, but more limited. The mothers essentially teach their calves the pod's dialect, using a simplified version.

My favourite animal has culture.

:D