A new study shows female orcas that have gone through menopause appear to take the roles of "wise women" that guide their pods to search for food and ensuring survival with their wisdom and experience.

Researchers say the occurrence of menopause in animals is rare and apart from humans, the only species to exhaust their reproductive cycles are orcas and short-finned pilot whales.

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These menopausal orcas are observed to act as some sort of sage-like consultancy and direct their groups or pods to where food can be found when fish is hard to come by. According to Darren Croft from the University of Exeter in the U.K., this marks the first study to show pre-menopausal orca females act as repositories of essential knowledge and vital survival information.

Female orcas are known to live as long as 90 years old even if their reproductive years wither away and they stop breeding at age 40. In contrast, males only live until the age of 50.

To reach their findings, researchers analyzed hundreds of hours of video footage of family pods of orcas living in the coastal waters off the Pacific specifically in Washington and British Columbia. The video shows more than 100 individually recognized orcas.

Researchers found out that post menopausal females are 32 percent more likely to evolve as group leaders as opposed to non-menopausal adult females where 57 percent are more likely to take the role of the pod leader than their adult male counterparts.

Croft observes that when the orcas' primary source of food, the Chinook salmon, was scarce, post menopausal females are more likely to be seen leading the family pods. He says this trait might be caused by accumulated experience.

This study reveals that post menopausal females probably have better knowledge where to go to look for fish and when is the best time for it.

Female orcas often experience an early end of reproduction, which is then followed by a long menopausal lifespan. Researchers conclude orcas are in so many ways similar to human hunter-gatherer societies.

Most animal species leave their parents to be independent, but male and female orcas stay together as a family unit for the rest of their lives.

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