93 Fun Facts About Orcas

Orcas are the largest members of which animal family?

Despite their common name 'killer whale,' orcas are actually the largest species within the oceanic dolphin family, Delphinidae.

What is the genus name for orcas?

Orcinus is the orca's genus, with Orcinus orca its only living species; the name is usually glossed as 'belonging to Orcus', the Roman god of the underworld.

How long does the average wild male orca live?

30 years is the average lifespan of a wild male orca, though some reach 50 or 60; females average about 50 years and the oldest known have passed 80.

What is the grey marking just behind an orca's dorsal fin called?

The saddle patch is the grey marking behind the dorsal fin; its shape, together with nicks in the fin, lets researchers identify individual orcas from photographs.

What is the technique called when Antarctic orcas swim in formation to wash seals off ice floes?

Wave-hunting, also called wave-washing, is right: Antarctic pack-ice orcas swim abreast toward a floe to raise a wave that washes the seal into the water, where other orcas wait.

Biogeographers use which term for a species like the orca whose range covers most of the Earth?

Cosmopolitan species live in every ocean from the Arctic to the Antarctic; orcas sit alongside the blue whale, the great white shark and the peregrine falcon as textbook examples.

What is the approximate gestation period for an orca calf?

Orcas have one of the longest gestation periods among marine mammals, typically lasting between 15 to 18 months.

What global status does the IUCN Red List give the orca?

In 2008 the IUCN moved orcas from 'conservation dependent' to 'data deficient', since one or more orca types may be separate, endangered species.

In what kind of social structure do orcas primarily live?

Stable matrilineal pods are right: a pod is a set of related matrilines led by older females that travel and hunt together, and a resident matriline can span four generations.

A tagged sub-Antarctic orca feeding on toothfish was recorded diving closest to which depth?

1,000 meters (3,300 feet) is closest: the tagged orca reached 1,087 meters while taking toothfish, roughly 300 meters deeper than any orca dive logged before it.

Why did sailors give orcas the menacing common name 'killer whale'?

They saw them hunt larger whales, and the name was originally closer to 'whale killer'; orcas are actually the largest dolphins.

Which naturalist first formally described the orca, in the 1758 edition of Systema Naturae?

Carl Linnaeus named the orca Delphinus orca in the 1758 tenth edition of Systema Naturae, the work that founded modern zoological nomenclature.

How many fatal orca attacks on humans have been recorded in the wild, as opposed to at marine parks?

None in the wild; captive orcas, by contrast, have killed several handlers at marine parks.

How tall is the dorsal fin of an adult male orca?

About 1.8 metres is right: an adult male's dorsal fin can reach 1.8 m (6 ft), more than twice the height of a female's, which is shorter and more curved.

What is the minimum worldwide orca population suggested by a 2006 consensus estimate?

50,000 is right: the 2006 estimate put the global minimum at about 50,000 orcas, roughly 25,000 of them in Antarctic waters.

Which salmon species dominates the diet of northeast Pacific resident orcas?

Chinook is right: the largest and fattiest Pacific salmon makes up roughly two-thirds of the salmon that northeast Pacific resident orcas eat, while sockeye and pink are barely taken.

What is it called when orcas herd herring into a tight ball with bubbles and flashes of their white undersides?

Carousel feeding ends with tail slaps on the ball and the stunned fish eaten one by one.

Orcas kill great white sharks by flipping them onto their backs, inducing what paralysed state?

Tonic immobility is right: turning a shark belly-up sends it into a trance-like state in which it stops moving, leaving the orca free to feed.

Between 2019 and 2021, orcas off Western Australia were recorded killing which giant animal?

Blue whales is right: researchers documented three successful orca hunts of blue whales off Bremer Bay, Western Australia, in 2019 and 2021, one victim estimated at 18 to 22 metres long.

Off Península Valdés in Argentina, orcas do what to snatch sea lions in the shallows?

Beach themselves temporarily, then wriggle back to sea; beaching is normally fatal to cetaceans and takes the young years of practice.

A captive orca at Marineland of Canada learned to catch what by regurgitating fish as bait?

Other orcas in the tank copied the trick.

What top speed can orcas reach?

About 56 km/h is right: orcas have been clocked at roughly 56 km/h (35 mph) in short bursts, among the fastest speeds of any marine mammal.

Which feature of resident orca society is rare among mammals?

Both sexes stay with their mothers for life among resident orcas: males leave only briefly to mate with females from other pods and then return to their mother's matriline.

What was the name of the only orca recorded as permanently separated from its resident family group?

Luna became famous for seeking out humans and boats in Nootka Sound.

Orcas are among the very few animals that go through what?

Menopause is right: female orcas stop breeding around age 40 yet can live decades longer, and these post-reproductive grandmothers lead their pods to salmon.

How old was the southern resident orca Granny (J2) estimated to be at her death?

105 is right: Granny (J2) was presumed dead in late 2016 with an estimated birth year of 1911, though a later biopsy-based study suggested she was only 65 to 80.

Which Roman writer gave the first written description of an orca, around AD 70?

Pliny the Elder is right: his Natural History, finished around AD 77, calls the orca 'an enormous mass of flesh armed with savage teeth' and recounts one killed in Ostia harbour under Claudius.

Which people's mythology tells of orcas living in houses and towns under the sea?

The Haida is right: Haida mythology tells of orcas living in houses and towns beneath the sea and regards them as the most powerful animals in the ocean.

Since 2020, orcas off the Iberian coast have repeatedly damaged boats by targeting which part?

The rudder is right: since 2020 Iberian orcas have rammed and bitten the rudders of yachts, disabling their steering and sinking several boats off Spain and Portugal.

What was the name of the southern resident orca harpooned off Saturna Island in 1964, whose captivity transformed public attitudes?

Moby Doll is right: harpooned in 1964 as a model for a Vancouver Aquarium sculpture, he survived 87 days in captivity and proved docile, never trying to attack his handlers.

How many orcas were captured from the Pacific Northwest for aquaria between 1964 and 1976?

50 is right: roughly 50 orcas were taken alive from Pacific Northwest waters between 1964 and 1976, most of them southern residents, before the captures were halted in Washington State in 1976.

Keiko, star of Free Willy, was released off which country's coast in 2002?

Iceland is right: Keiko was released from a sea pen in the Westman Islands in summer 2002, swam to Norway, and died of pneumonia in a Norwegian bay in December 2003.

Keiko's name, given at a Mexico City amusement park, is a Japanese word meaning what?

He was just 3 metres long when he arrived at Reino Aventura in 1985.

The 2013 documentary Blackfish centred on which captive orca, involved in three human deaths?

Tilikum is right: the largest orca in captivity, he was linked to three deaths between 1991 and 2010 and died at SeaWorld Orlando in January 2017.

The name of the orca in Blackfish comes from a Pacific Northwest trade language and means what?

Friends, relations, tribe is right: tilikum (or tillicum) is a Chinook Jargon word for friends, relations or people, and was given to the orca after his 1983 capture off Iceland.

Old Tom, an orca who died in 1930, was famous for helping whalers at which Australian port?

Eden is right: Old Tom's pod herded baleen whales into Twofold Bay for the Davidson family's whalers, and his skeleton is displayed in the Eden Killer Whale Museum.

Which prey do the large Antarctic Type A orcas mainly hunt?

Antarctic minke whales are the main prey of Type A orcas, the large open-water Antarctic form; pack-ice Type B orcas take seals and Type C orcas fish.

In late 2005 the southern resident orcas received what official designation?

US Endangered Species Act protection is right: NOAA listed the southern resident orcas as endangered under the Act in November 2005, citing prey depletion, PCB pollution and past captures.

Which old name for the orca, once common, has fallen out of use?

The word survives as the genus name of Risso's dolphin, Grampus griseus, which is an entirely different animal.

Some Antarctic orcas look brown and yellow because of what in the water?

The microscopic algae coat their skin; the same diatom film gives Antarctic types B and C their yellowish tinge.

What colour are the 'white' patches on a newborn orca?

Yellow or orange is right: a newborn's eye and belly patches carry a yellow to orange tint that fades to white over the calf's first year.

Orcas have been documented how far up the Columbia River?

About 100 miles is right: orcas have been recorded more than 100 miles up the Columbia River in pursuit of fish, and have also entered Canada's Fraser River and Japan's Horikawa River.

On average, how much food does an orca eat each day?

About 500 lb (227 kg) is right: an adult orca eats roughly 227 kg of food a day, around 3 to 4 percent of its body weight.

What do humpback whales sometimes do when orcas attack calves, even of other species?

Mob the attackers is right: humpbacks charge, bellow and slap at hunting orcas, and a 2017 review logged more than 100 such interventions, many defending seals and other species' calves.

Because they hunt in groups, orcas are called the '___ of the sea' — which land animal?

Wolves is right: orcas are called the 'wolves of the sea' because they hunt cooperatively in packs, taking prey from fish and squid to seals and even large whales.

In 2025, Salish Sea orcas were reported grooming each other with lengths of what?

Bull kelp is right: a 2025 study found southern resident orcas biting off bull kelp stalks and rolling them between their bodies, a grooming behaviour the authors named 'allokelping'.

Among marine mammals, orcas have the second-heaviest brain after which animal?

Sperm whale is right: it has the heaviest brain of any animal at around 8 kg, while an orca's brain weighs roughly 5.5 to 7 kg, several times a human's.

Roughly what share of orca calves die during their first seven months?

37–50% is right: mortality peaks in the first seven months, when between 37 and 50 percent of orca calves die; weaning then begins around 12 months.

What are the three categories of sound that orcas produce?

Clicks, whistles and pulsed calls is right: clicks serve echolocation, whistles and pulsed calls carry social communication, and each resident pod shares a dialect of repeated pulsed call types.

Why are mammal-hunting transient orcas usually silent while hunting?

Their prey hear calls well is right: seals and porpoises hear orca calls and would flee, so transients hunt in near silence, while fish-eating residents chatter because salmon hear poorly.

In the first recorded wild orca infanticide (2016), a male was helped by which relative?

His mother is right: in December 2016 off northern Vancouver Island, an adult male and his mother together drowned a newborn calf, probably so that the male could mate with the calf's mother.

About half of one Alaskan orca pod vanished the year after which 1989 oil spill?

Exxon Valdez is right: in the year after the March 1989 spill in Prince William Sound the AB resident pod lost roughly 40 percent of its members, and the AT1 transients fell to single digits.

The smallest Antarctic orcas, with forward-slanted eye patches, are classed as which?

Type C is right: also called Ross Sea orcas, they are the smallest form, live in larger groups than other Antarctic types, and their only observed prey is the Antarctic toothfish.

Type D orcas were first identified from photos of a 1955 mass stranding in which country?

New Zealand is right: Type D was first recognised from photographs of 17 orcas stranded at Paraparaumu, New Zealand, in 1955; they have tiny eye patches and a bulbous, pilot-whale-like head.

Orcinus citoniensis, an extinct orca from Pliocene Italy, was roughly how long?

4 m is right: Orcinus citoniensis was about 4 metres long, roughly half the size of a modern orca, carried about eight more teeth, and may be a transitional form between early dolphins and today's orcas.

What is it called when an orca holds its head vertically above the surface to look around?

Spyhopping lets Antarctic type B orcas spot seals resting on ice floes before washing them off with waves.

What is an orca doing when it 'breaches'?

Leaping fully out of the water is right: a breach lifts most or all of the body clear of the surface, and may serve courtship, communication, parasite removal or play.

How long is a typical adult male orca?

6 to 8 metres is right for an adult male; the largest recorded reached about 9.8 metres and 10 tonnes, while females are smaller at 5 to 7 metres.

Some orcas have been seen swimming around with what on their heads, like hats?

Dead salmon is right: in 1987 a female in Puget Sound's K pod began wearing a dead salmon on her head, the fad spread to other pods within weeks, and it reappeared in 2024.

Alaskan orcas have learned to steal fish from which kind of fishing gear?

Longlines is right: orcas in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea strip sablefish and halibut from longline hooks, and split into groups when boats spread out to dodge them.

In 1956, which country's navy claimed to have machine-gunned hundreds of orcas?

United States is right: in 1956, at the request of Iceland's government, US Navy aircraft and ships used machine guns, rockets and depth charges against orcas blamed for wrecking herring nets.

What share of orcas captured in Puget Sound for aquariums through 1970 bore bullet scars?

25% is right: a quarter of the orcas captured in Puget Sound for aquariums up to 1970 carried bullet scars, from an era when fishermen shot them as pests.

Which people of Hokkaido called the orca Repun Kamuy, a god of the offshore sea?

Ainu is right: the Ainu of Hokkaido revered the orca as Repun Kamuy, god of the offshore sea, and gave stranded orcas funerals as they did for brown bears.

The Lummi people's word for orcas, qwe'lhol'mechen, translates roughly as what?

Our relations under the waves is right: the Lummi Nation's qwe'lhol'mechen treats the southern resident orcas as kin, and the tribe has held salmon-feeding ceremonies for ailing individuals.

In Kwakwaka'wakw belief the orca rules the undersea world with which animals as warriors?

Dolphins is right: in Kwakwaka'wakw tradition the orca rules the undersea world with dolphins as its warriors and sea lions as its slaves.

On Scott's Terra Nova Expedition, orcas tried to tip a floe under a photographer and what?

Sled dogs is right: in January 1911 orcas rose under a floe holding photographer Herbert Ponting and tethered sled dogs; Scott wrote that the animals seemed drawn by the dogs.

Sailors harassed by orcas off Iberia are told to drop bags of what overboard?

Sand clouds the water and is thought to confuse the orcas' sonar.

Iberian orcas seen interacting with boats are all given which designation?

Gladis is right: every Iberian orca recorded interacting with boats carries the name, after the old species name Orcinus gladiator; White Gladis is the matriarch suspected of starting the behaviour.

What is the main food of the Iberian orcas that gather in the Strait of Gibraltar?

Atlantic bluefin tuna is right: the Strait of Gibraltar orcas feed on bluefin, following the tuna's migration along Portugal and Galicia through summer before heading offshore in autumn.

An Antarctic catch of how many orcas in 1979–80 pushed the IWC to urge a hunting ban?

916 is right: the Soviet Antarctic fleet took 916 orcas in the 1979–80 season, which prompted the International Whaling Commission to recommend a ban on commercial orca hunting pending research.

In March 2016, SeaWorld announced it would end what?

Its orca breeding programme is right: on 17 March 2016 SeaWorld announced an immediate end to orca breeding, making the whales then in its parks its last generation.

Wanda, the first orca taken for display (California, 1961), survived in her tank how long?

Two days is right: Wanda, netted in Newport Harbor in November 1961 for Marineland of the Pacific, died within two days after racing around her tank and ramming its walls.

What does the name of the original Shamu mean?

Friend of Namu is right: the name blends 'she' and 'Namu'; she was caught in 1965 as a companion for Namu at Ted Griffin's Seattle aquarium, then sold to SeaWorld.

Shamu was retired in 1971 after biting an employee who had been told to do what?

Ride her in a bikini is right: in April 1971 SeaWorld secretary Annette Eckis was put on Shamu's back in a bikini for a publicity shoot; the orca, used to wetsuits, bit her leg.

Lolita's original name, Tokitae, means what in Chinook Jargon?

'Bright day, pretty colors' was her first name; she spent over 50 years at the Miami Seaquarium before dying in 2023.

Tokitae was renamed Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium after the heroine of whose novel?

Vladimir Nabokov is right: Lolita is the title character of his 1955 novel, and the Seaquarium chose the name because the young orca shared a tank with an older male, Hugo.

Which delivery company donated the Hercules cargo plane that flew Keiko, the Free Willy orca, to Oregon in 1996?

UPS supplied a Lockheed L-100 Hercules; the Oregon Coast Aquarium had been given over $7 million, much of it from schoolchildren, to nurse him back to health.

Who played Jesse, the boy who befriends Willy, in Free Willy (1993)?

Jason James Richter is right: he played Jesse at age 13 and returned for both sequels; the movie grossed about $154 million worldwide on a $20 million budget.

Who directed the 2013 documentary Blackfish?

Gabriela Cowperthwaite's film was picked up by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films and earned a BAFTA nomination.

The bull orca at the centre of Blackfish sired how many calves in captivity?

21 is right: Tilikum sired 21 calves, the most of any SeaWorld orca; at 6.9 metres and about 5,700 kg he was also the largest orca in captivity.

The Blackfish orca's first fatal incident (1991) happened at which park near Victoria, BC?

Sealand of the Pacific is right: trainer Keltie Byrne drowned there in February 1991 after slipping into the pool with Tilikum and two females; the park sold its orcas to SeaWorld and closed in 1992.

Which SeaWorld Orlando trainer's 2010 death prompted the making of Blackfish?

Dawn Brancheau is right: she was killed by Tilikum on 24 February 2010, and the director began Blackfish partly in response to claims the orca had grabbed her by her ponytail.

Trainer Alexis Martínez was killed by the orca Keto on Christmas Eve 2009 at which park?

Loro Parque is right: Martínez, 29, died during a show rehearsal at the Tenerife park on 24 December 2009; trainers there stopped entering the water with orcas from that date.

Wikie, an orca at Marineland of Antibes, was reported in 2018 to be the first of her species to do what?

Mimic human words: she copied 'hello', 'bye bye' and her trainer's name through her blowhole, prompting calls for her release.

Kiska, who spent her last 12 years alone at a Canadian park, earned what nickname?

The World's Loneliest Orca is right: Kiska, the last captive orca in Canada, lived alone at Marineland in Niagara Falls from 2011 until her death in March 2023, kept under a grandfather clause after the 2019 ban.

Orphan orca Springer was confirmed in 2002 near which Seattle-area ferry dock?

Vashon is right: Springer (A73) turned up alone near the Vashon Island ferry dock in January 2002, and call analysis traced her to the northern resident community 250 miles away.

In 2018, southern resident Tahlequah (J35) carried her dead calf for how many days?

17 is right: Tahlequah carried her dead newborn for 17 days and about 1,000 miles in July and August 2018 before finally letting it go.

Why was Granny (J2) released after being netted with her pod in 1967?

Too old for a marine park is right: Granny was judged too old to sell when her pod was netted in Puget Sound in 1967, and her age was later estimated from her presumed descendants.

Port and Starboard, two males famous for killing great whites, hunt off which country?

South Africa is right: Port and Starboard, named for dorsal fins collapsed to the left and right, have hunted great whites off Gansbaai and False Bay since at least 2017.

Great whites killed by Port and Starboard wash ashore missing only which organ?

Shark livers are dense with calories and fat; by 2020 great white sightings in False Bay had dropped to almost zero.

What unwritten rule let Old Tom's orca pod take the choicest parts of each whale?

The Law of the Tongue: whalers anchored carcasses so the orcas could eat the tongue and lips, leaving the blubber and bones for the humans.

The southern resident orcas form a single clan made up of which three pods?

J, K and L is right: the southern resident community is a single acoustic clan of three pods, J, K and L, all sharing call types, and numbers fewer than 80 whales.

Four dams on which river are blamed for starving southern resident orcas of salmon?

The Snake is right: four lower Snake River dams in Washington cut Chinook runs, and calls to breach them grew after Tahlequah's 2018 vigil drew global attention to the pods' decline.