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.
- 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
