---
title: Killer Whale (Orcinus orca)
scientific_name: Orcinus orca
common_name: Killer Whale
taxon: Dolphins
conservation_status: DD - Data Deficient
published: 2024-11-02T09:28:02.105Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:57:50.760Z
tags: Killer Whale, Orcinus orca, Dolphins, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/dolphins/killer-whale-cosmopolitan
---

# Killer Whale (*Orcinus orca*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Dolphins (*Delphinidae*)
- **Size:** up to 8 m
- **Weight:** 3 - 6 T
- **Depth:** 0-300 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Very Rare
- **Habitat:** Open water, from the surface down; anywhere with large prey
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **CITES:** Appendix II
- **Conservation status:** DD - Data Deficient

## How to recognise it

- unmistakable black and white pattern with a white patch behind the eye
- male dorsal fin up to 1.8 m and nearly straight; the female's is curved and half the height
- gray saddle patch behind the fin, its shape unique to each animal
- length up to 8 m

The largest dolphin, and the only animal that needs no description: black above, white below, with a white patch behind the eye and a dorsal fin that in an adult male stands nearly two meters straight up. Females and young males carry a curved fin half that height, which is why a distant pod looks like two different species.

What makes it remarkable is not the hunting but the culture. Populations that share the same water do not interbreed, eat different prey, hunt by different methods and use different calls - one group takes only fish, another only marine mammals, and a calf learns its group's dialect and menu from its mother rather than inventing them. Those differences are inherited socially, not genetically, and they are stable across generations. Biologists studying them ended up borrowing the vocabulary of anthropology.

Females stop breeding around forty and live to eighty or beyond. Menopause exists in almost nothing else, and the reason appears to be that an old female who knows where the food is in a bad year is worth more to her family than another calf.

In this sea it is a visitor and an event. Records amount to a handful of sightings, mostly in the south and mostly of animals passing through, and a report from here is worth photographing and reporting rather than assuming it was a false killer whale.

**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:** grampus, killer whale, killer-trasher
- **Arabic:** حوت سفاح, حوت قاتل, أوركا
- **Hebrew:** לוויתן קטלן, קטלן
- **French:** dorque, epaulard, epée de mer
- **Italian:** orca, Orca assassina
- **German:** großer Schwertwal, Orca, Schwertwal
- **Spanish:** ballena asesina, bufeo de mascarilla, ballena pinta, ballena quila
- **Greek:** Όρκα
- **Turkish:** katil balina
- **Portuguese:** baleia asesina, Baleia-assassina, orca
- **Dutch:** Orka, Zwaardwalvis, botskop
- **Swedish:** späckhuggare, tunnlik tumlare, löpare
- **Polish:** Orka oceaniczna
- **Czech:** kosatka dravá
- **Japanese:** sadshi, sakamata, shachi
- **Chinese:** 虎鯨
- **Ukrainian:** Косатка
- **Russian:** или кит убийца, kasatka, косатка
- **AF:** Roofwalvis, moordvis
- **BEL:** Касатка
- **BG:** kosаtkа
- **BOD:** སྟག་ཆུ་སྲིན།
- **BRE:** Skoazog
- **CYM:** orca gwryw, Lleiddiaid, lleiddiad
- **DA:** Spækhugger
- **EPO:** Granda orcino
- **EU:** ezpalarta, marzupla
- **FA:** نهنگ قاتل
- **FAO:** Bóghvítuhvalur, bovhidehval
- **FI:** miekkavalas
- **GL:** Candorca
- **GLA:** madadh-cuain, madaidhean-cuain, pictwale
- **GLE:** Cráin dhubh
- **HU:** kardszárnyú delfin
- **HYE:** Խոյադելֆին
- **ID:** Paus pembunuh, paus pemangsa, seguni
- **IKU:** adluk
- **IPK:** Aaġlu
- **IS:** Háhyrningur, fann-fiskar-hydengen, haa-hirningur
- **KAL:** aarluk, ardlursark, ardlyk
- **KAT:** ცელნამგალა ვეშაპი
- **KO:** beom-gorae, innuatu, 범고래
- **LV:** Zobenvalis
- **MAL:** കൊലയാളി തിമിംഗലം
- **MKD:** Кит убиец
- **MLG:** trozona mpamond
- **MON:** Алуурчин халим
- **MRI:** Kākahi, Maki
- **NAV:** Łóóʼtsoh łizhin dóó łigaígíí
- **NNO:** spekkhoggar
- **NO:** spekkhogger, starhyn ning, van hund
- **SME:** fáhkan, Fahkon
- **SQI:** Balena vrasëse
- **SR:** Кит убица
- **TAM:** ஓர்க்கா திமிங்கலம்
- **TEL:** ఓర్కా
- **TH:** วาฬเพชฌฆาต
- **VI:** Cá hổ kình

## Scientific synonyms

- *Delphinus duhameli* Lacépède, 1804
- *Delphinus gladiator* Bonnaterre, 1789
- *Delphinus grampus* Blainville, 1817
- *Delphinus orca* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Delphinus orca ensidoratus* Kerr, 1792
- *Delphinus serra* Borowski, 1780
- *Delphinus victorini* Grill, 1858
- *Grampus orca* Iredale & Troughton, 1933
- *Grampus rectipinna* Scheffer, 1942
- *Grampus vectipinna* Branson, 1971
- *Ophysia pacifica* Gray, 1870
- *Orca africana* Gray, 1871
- *Orca antarctica* Fischer, 1876
- *Orca ater* Cope, 1869
- *Orca ater fusca* Dall, 1874
- *Orca atra* Gray, 1871
- *Orca capensis* Gray, 1846
- *Orca eschrichtii* Reinhardt, 1866
- *Orca glacialis* Berzin & Vladimirov, 1982
- *Orca gladiator* Van Beneden & Gervais, 1869-1880
- *Orca gladiator arcticus* Gervais, 1869-1871
- *Orca gladiator australis* Gervais, 1869-1871
- *Orca gladiator europaeus* Gervais, 1869-1871
- *Orca gladiator tasmaniensis* Cabrera, 1961
- *Orca latirostris* Gray, 1870

## Range

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

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