Can be seen alone or in large groups of 20 or
more animals
Generally travel at 6 to 8 km per hour
Grey patch on the back behind the dorsal fin
What Does a Killer Whale
Look Like? move cursor over body parts to see enlargement*
How Can you Tell Whales Apart?
photo by J.K.Ford
The easiest way to tell adult
killer whales apart, is by looking at the size of their dorsal
fin.
In this example the adult male's dorsal fin is 6 feet high and
the adult female's dorsal fin is about 2 ½ feet high.
Dorsal
Fins Click here to to compare the
size and shape of dorsal fins of different whales.
photo G.Ellis
MUG
SHOTS
Killer whales have unique markings that make individuals
recognizable. Just like every human has a unique fingerprint,
each individual killer whale has a unique combination
of nicks, scars and saddle patch markings that researchers
can use to learn more about these whales.
Killer Whale Behaviors
photo by J.K. Ford
When traveling, killer whales generally will come to the
surface three or four times in a row, and then go down on
a longer and deeper dive that lasts several minutes.
Killer whales will sometimes "play" and engage in
other behaviors.
breach
photo by Lance Barrett-Lennard and Kathy Heise
This
is a picture of a killer whale breaching, or jumping all the
way out of the water.
spyhop
photo G.Ellis
When
a killer whale sticks its head up and out of the water, this
behavior is called a spyhop.
HOW CAN YOU SPOT
WHALES?
See how low and diffuse these killer
whale blows are.
photo J.K. Ford
For more information on how
to identify
different types of whales click here
Blows
Often a good clue that helps to find whales, is to look for
the "blow". This is created when the whale comes
to the surface to breathe and looks a little like a puff of
smoke.
Take a look at the blows
of other whales to compare them to the blows of killer
whales.
VIDEO CLIPS:
These short video clips might help you to identify
killer whales in the wild.
They may take a few minutes to load.
you must have quicktime installed
to view these movies. Click
here
to get quicktime now.
Dall's
porpoises and killer whale (1700k)
Here are some Dall's porpoise swimming with killer whales. Note
the difference in body size and shape between the two different
animals.
A Word of Caution The only other marine mammal that might be confused
with a killer whale, is the Dall's porpoise. The porpoise
is much smaller (no more that 6 feet long) and the body
shape and dorsal fin size are quite different as compared
with a killer whale.
Dall's porpoise*
killer whale*
LINKS:
This was a quick introduction to the killer whales of Alaska.
If you want to find out more about killer whales, here are
a few other places to search.
