---
title: False Killer Whale (Pseudorca crassidens)
scientific_name: Pseudorca crassidens
common_name: False Killer Whale
taxon: Dolphins
conservation_status: NT - Near Threatened
published: 2024-11-02T09:25:39.543Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:57:50.787Z
tags: False Killer Whale, Pseudorca crassidens, Dolphins, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/dolphins/false-killer-whale
---

# False Killer Whale (*Pseudorca crassidens*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Dolphins (*Delphinidae*)
- **Size:** up to 6 m
- **Weight:** 2,300 kg
- **Depth:** 0-500 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Deep open water, occasionally close to steep coasts
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **CITES:** Appendix II
- **Conservation status:** NT - Near Threatened

## How to recognise it

- slender all-black body with a small rounded head and no beak
- S-shaped bend on the leading edge of the flippers, unique to this species
- tall fin set at the middle of the back, often flopped or nicked
- length up to 6 m

Slender, uniformly black, up to 6 m (20 ft), with a small rounded head, no beak and a flipper whose leading edge carries a distinct S-shaped bend - the one feature nothing else shares. It is not a whale and not closely related to the killer whale it is named after; the resemblance is in the skull.

It shares food. Individuals in a group pass a caught fish from mouth to mouth before anyone eats, including to animals that took no part in the hunt, and the behavior has been filmed often enough to be considered routine rather than anecdotal. Very few animals hand over a meal they are holding.

The other side of the same sociability is the strandings. False killer whales live in large tight groups and follow each other closely enough that when one animal goes wrong, the rest follow it ashore - mass strandings of over a hundred are on record. Their bonds are strong enough to kill them.

They are fast, curious, and quite capable of taking large prey: tuna, other dolphins, and fish off longlines, which is where most of their conflict with people comes from.

**We do not support keeping dolphins in captivity.** These are animals that travel tens of kilometers a day, hunt in coordinated groups, hold societies with their own dialects, and stay with their families for life. A show pool reproduces none of it, and the noise, the chlorine and the boredom are not details - they are what kills them early. Many of the animals performing today were taken from the sea, and the drive hunts that supply them continue because the tickets sell. So do not buy one. No dolphinarium, swim-with-dolphins program or hotel show survives without paying visitors, and every one of them ends the day people stop coming.

## Also known as

- **English:** blackfish, False Pilot Whale, bubble, false killer whale
- **Arabic:** حوت قاتل زائف, حوت قاتل كاذب, حوت قاتل مزيف
- **Hebrew:** עבשן קטלני, עבשן
- **French:** faux-orque, Fausse orque, pseudorque
- **Italian:** pseudorca
- **German:** kleiner Mörder, kleiner Schwertwal, schwarzer Schwertwal
- **Spanish:** delfin chato, falsa orca comun, orca bastarda
- **Greek:** Ψευδόρκα
- **Turkish:** yalancı katil balina
- **Portuguese:** falsa orca, galha torta, Falsa-orca
- **Dutch:** Kleine zwaardwalvis, Zwarte zwaardwalvis, zwarte schijnorka
- **Swedish:** halvspäckhuggare, falsk späckhuggare
- **Polish:** Orka karłowata, Szablogrzbiet waleniożerny, szablogrzbiet
- **Czech:** kosatka černá
- **Japanese:** okigondo kujira, kyuri-gondo, oiokui
- **Chinese:** 伪虎鲸, 偽虎鯨
- **Ukrainian:** Косатка мала, мала косатка
- **Russian:** или черная косатка, chornaya kasatka, малая
- **AF:** valsmoordvis
- **CA:** orca falsa
- **CYM:** Coegleiddiaid, coegleiddiad
- **DA:** Halvspækhugger
- **FI:** pikkumiekkavalas
- **HU:** Kis kardszárnyúdelfin
- **ID:** paus pemangsa palsu, Paus-pembunuh Palsu, temu blaa
- **IS:** Háhyrningsbróðir
- **KO:** heuk-beom-gorae, 흑범고래
- **LT:** juodoji orka
- **NNO:** halvspekkhoggar, falsk spekkhoggar
- **NO:** halvspekkhogger, falsk spekkhogger
- **SIN:** komadwa
- **SL:** mala orka
- **TAM:** thimingalam
- **TH:** plawan phechakhat dam, วาฬเพชรฆาตดำ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Globicephalus grayi* Burmeister, 1867
- *Orca crassidens* Gray, 1846
- *Orca destructor* Cope, 1866
- *Orca meridionalis* Flower, 1865
- *Phocaena crassidens* Owen, 1846
- *Pseudorca crassidens meridionalis* Deraniyagala, 1945
- *Pseudorca grayi* Burmeister, 1872
- *Pseudorca mediterranea* Giglioli, 1882
- *Pseudorca meridionalis* Gray, 1866

## Range

Comoros, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Greece, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea, Mozambique, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, Seychelles, Southern Ocean, Tanzania, Western Indian Ocean, World Oceans

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/dolphins/false-killer-whale)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*