Science topic

Killer Whale - Science topic

The species Orcinus orca, in the family Delphinidae, characterized by its black and white coloration, and huge triangular dorsal fin. It is the largest member of the DOLPHINS and derives its name from the fact that it is a fearsome predator.
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Publications related to Killer Whale (2,751)
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Article
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Abstract: Between January 2020 and December 2023 a total of 1940 (live and) dead stranded cetaceans were reported in the Netherlands, belonging to 14 species. With 1896 individuals, harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) was the most commonly reported species. Most porpoises were found in the south-west of the country (Delta), but highest densities w...
Article
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This study presents refined epigenetic clocks for cetaceans, building on previous research that estimated ages in several species from bottlenose dolphins to bowhead and humpback whales using cytosine methylation levels. We combined publicly available data (generated on the HorvathMammalMethylChip40 platform) from skin (n = 805) and blood (n = 286)...
Article
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Rationale Stable isotope analysis of growth layer groups (GLGs) in mammal dentin is an increasingly prevalent and noninvasive approach to study animal foraging ecology. However, empirical evidence to support assumed proper methodologies for sampling GLGs is lacking. Here, we examine the effects of intratooth and intertooth variations with respect t...
Article
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Killer whales (Orcinus orca), as apex predators, accumulate high levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and its analogs (DDTs) and face their risks at the population level. The assessment of the function of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) is crucial for evaluating impact of DDTs on killer whale endocrin...
Article
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Killer whales (Orcinus orca) have been documented to prey on white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), in some cases causing localised shark displacement and triggering ecological cascades. Notably, a series of such predation events have been reported from South Africa over the last decade, with killer whales specifically targeting sharks' liver. Howe...
Article
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The expansion of drone-based aerial imagery has facilitated an increase in data obtained from free-ranging marine mammal populations, in particular cetacean species. This non-invasive approach allows for body condition assessments, including nutritional and reproductive health. Yet, existing methods of image analysis are time-consuming and lack the...
Article
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Introduction Perceived loudness is challenging to study in non-human animals. However, reaction time to an acoustic stimulus is a useful behavioral proxy for the assessment of perceived loudness. Understanding the effect of sound frequency and level on perceived loudness would improve prediction and modeling of anthropogenic noise impacts on marine...
Article
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Metapopulation dynamics can be shaped by foraging ecology, and thus be sensitive to shifts in prey availability. Genotyping 204 North Atlantic killer whales at 1346 loci, we investigated whether spatio-temporal population structuring is linked to prey type and distribution. Using population-based methods (reflecting evolutionary means), we report a...
Article
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A comprehensive understanding of cetacean ecology is crucial for conservation and management. In 2018, Kaimana was identified as an Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) due to the regular presence of feeding aggregations of Australian humpback dolphins (Sousa sahulensis), Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) and Bryde's whales (Balaenopter...
Article
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Arctic sea ice has provided a historical barrier for killer whale (Orcinus orca) entry, but that barrier is now depleting as the sea ice melts due to global climate change. This study used passive acoustic monitoring to describe changes in broad-scale killer whale presence in the U.S. Arctic associated with declining sea ice. Passive acoustic data...
Article
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The disruption of a new food chain in the South American sea lion (SSL, Otaria byronia), with predation on green sea turtles (GST, Chelonia mydas) is reported for Northern Chile, probably from “nutritional stress” as result of anchovy (Engraulis ringens) overfishing, its fundamental food, with implications that cross multinational barriers in the S...
Article
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The ocean is facing many anthropogenic stressors caused from both pollution and climate change. These stressors are significantly impacting and changing the ocean’s ecosystem, and as such, methods must continually be developed that can improve our ability to monitor the health of marine life. For cetaceans, the current practice for health assessmen...
Article
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Anellovirus infections are ubiquitous in mammals but lack any clear disease association, suggesting a commensal virus-host relationship. Although anelloviruses have been identified in numerous mammalian hosts, their presence in members of the family Delphinidae has yet to be reported. Here, using a metagenomic approach, we characterize complete ane...
Chapter
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Machine-assisted photo identification processes require significant amounts of data for each member of a population of interest but offer the possibility to alleviate a significant amount of manual effort. Gathering such data is time consuming and opportunistic, leading to imbalanced datasets ill-suited for traditional machine (deep) learning effor...
Article
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Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are the apex predator in global oceans, and as such they are afforded access to prey species at all trophic levels and sizes. Due to their enhanced cognitive abilities, they are frequent predators of other ocean giants, including large sharks. Observations of these predator-prey interactions are rare globally; however,...
Presentation
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Killer whale ID catalogue update, showing recent additions to both winter and summer groups, including historical data on spacial and temporal sightings, encounters with humpback calves and predation success rates.
Article
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The captivity of orcas has been a controversial topic for decades, with significant ethical, behavioral, and physiological concerns. While marine parks promote orca shows as educational experiences, orcas often display abnormal behaviors, including stereotypic behaviors and social disruptions, as well as experience a range of health problems, such...
Article
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Biologging has been used on a range of wild animals to document spectacular feats of migration and behaviour. We describe the pursuit, capture, and ingestion of an adult Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) (175 cm, estimated weight: 81 kg), which was instrumented with a biologging tag, by a predator, most likely an orca (Orcinus orca). The pred...
Article
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Documenting species occurrence and distribution patterns is fundamental for effective conservation strategies, particularly for endangered species facing various threats. Killer whales ( Orcinus orca ) are distributed worldwide, yet some populations, such as the critically endangered Strait of Gibraltar subpopulation, lack comprehensive distributio...
Article
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Killer whales occur in the Gulf of Mexico (GoMex) and the North Atlantic, including off the southeastern United States (SEUS). Data from cetacean surveys during 1990 – 2021 and other sources were combined to assess killer whale biology, including spatial and temporal distribution, social structure, genetics, morphology, acoustics, and predatory beh...
Poster
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Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are a widely distributed species around the world, however, little is known about this species as the top predator of marine mammals along the coast to Peru. With data collected by the ORCA Stranding Network in Peru between 2003 and 2023, these observations aim to reveal interspecific interactions between O. orca and ma...
Technical Report
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Marine Fisheries Information Service Technical & Extension Series No. 260, 2024IC
Article
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Climate change is rapidly reshaping species distributions in the Arctic, which could profoundly impact ecosystem structure and function. While considerable effort has focused on projecting future species distributions, assessing the impacts of range-shifting species on recipient communities and subsequent disruptions to food webs remains largely un...
Article
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Context Sea otters, an endangered species, require regular assessments of their distribution and abundance. These animals inhabit the coastal waters of the North Pacific, traversing from Japan through the Kurils, southern Kamchatka, Commander and Aleutian Islands, and the coasts of North America, to California. Although populations in America and t...
Article
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Polyomaviruses (PyVs) are small double-stranded DNA viruses able to infect species across all vertebrate taxa. In cetaceans, PyVs have been reported only in short-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and killer whale (Orcinus orca). Herein, we surveyed PyV in 119 cetaceans (29 mysticetes and 90 o...
Poster
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The species Orcinus orca is spread across the globe. As top predators, killer whales constitute an important part of global biodiversity. Currently, they are not hunted. However, killer whales sometimes strand, experience trauma, become stuck in the ice, etc. Human aid is essential to save them. A case of a female Springer who was successfully retu...
Article
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Respiratory rate (mean number of breaths per minute) and respiratory interval (mean time between breaths) can offer insight into a diving mammal's activity state, metabolic rate, behavior, and synchronization due to social cohesion. Also, respiratory rate can reflect an individual animal's health and has the potential to be an informative remotely...
Article
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Differences in the availability of prey may explain the low numbers of southern resident killer whales and the increase in northern resident killer whales in British Columbia and Washington State. However, in-situ data on the availability of their preferred prey (Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the core feeding areas used by these two...
Conference Paper
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In this study, we developed a method to capture underwater sound fields and reproduce them for human listeners, providing an immersive 3D auditory experience. We recorded the sound field with an array of four hydrophones arranged in a tetrahedral structure. The side length of the tetrahedron (around 70 cm) was a compromise between capturing accurat...
Article
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Food chain is a linear sequence of organisms which starts from producer organisms and ends with decomposer species. Food web is a connection of multiple food chains. Food chain follows a single path whereas the food web follows multiple paths. From the food chain, we get to know how organisms are connected with each other. A food chain is a linear...
Preprint
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Ecologists often use a hidden Markov model to decode a latent process, such as a sequence of an animal's behaviours, from an observed biologging time series. Modern technological devices such as video recorders and drones now allow researchers to directly observe an animal's behaviour. Using these observations as labels of the latent process can im...
Article
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Gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) face many threats to their survival which are multi-faceted and difficult to assess. In this study, we evaluate photographs of Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG) gray whales taken between 2014 and 2020 off the northwest coast of Washington to document the occurrence of scarring from fishing gear entanglements, ve...
Article
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Orcas (Orcinus orca) are the top marine predators of the ocean, targeting multiple taxa including teleost fishes, elasmobranchs, seabirds, sea turtles, pinnipeds, odontocetes and other large cetaceans. According to their foraging strategies, genetics, acoustics, and morphology, orcas differentiate into ecotypes. Despite their cosmopolitan distribut...
Article
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Highly social top marine predators, including many cetaceans, exhibit culturally learned ecological behaviours such as diet preference and foraging strategy that can affect their resilience to competition or anthropogenic impacts. When these species are also endangered, conservation efforts require management strategies based on a comprehensive und...
Preprint
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Top predators influence ecological communities in part through the prey they consume, which they often track through cycles of seasonal and geographic abundance. Killer whales are top predators in the marine ecosystem. In the North Pacific, they have diverged into three distinct lineages with different diets, of which the fish-eating type is most a...
Article
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Understanding how the environment mediates an organism's ability to meet basic survival requirements is a fundamental goal of ecology. Vessel noise is a global threat to marine ecosystems and is increasing in intensity and spatiotemporal extent due to growth in shipping coupled with physical changes to ocean soundscapes from ocean warming and acidi...
Article
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Contacto: taniaramirez011200@gmail.com* Orcinus orca, as apex predators, exert a significant influence on ecosystem dynamics, serving as an indicator of ecosystem health. The implementation of tracking systems based on orca specimen identification has emerged as a highly effective conservation strategy. This study represents the first individual id...
Article
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Short-, medium-, and long-chain chlorinated paraffins (CPs) (SCCPs, MCCPs, and LCCPs) and dechloranes are chemicals of emerging concern; however, little is known of their bioaccumulative potential compared to legacy contaminants in marine mammals. Here, we analyzed SCCPs, MCCPs, LCCPs, 7 dechloranes, 4 emerging brominated flame retardants, and 64 l...
Article
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Rationale: Stable isotope analysis of bone provides insight into animal foraging and allows for ecological reconstructions over time, however pre-treatment is required to isolate collagen. Pre-treatments typically consist of demineralization to remove inorganic components and/or lipid extraction to remove fats, but these protocols can differentiall...
Article
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Mixed species groups are usually associated with group protection to avoid predation. Reports of killer whale occurrence and attacks are scarce in Brazilian waters. Here we report the first case of an attack by killer whales on a mixed group of humpbacks (Megaptera novaeangliae) and a southern right whale (Eubalaena australis). This is also the fir...
Article
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We describe the seldom observed event of a group of type A killer whale (Orcinus orca) predating on an Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) in austral summer 2019. A pod of 11-13 individuals was observed - and documented by photographs and video - as they killed and fed on the minke whale in the Bransfield Strait, northern Antarctic Pen...
Preprint
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Multiple populations of resident killer whales (Orcinus orca ater) inhabit the Northeast Pacific, but the southern resident killer whale (SRKW) population is the most at-risk. SRKWs were listed as endangered in the United States in 2005 and have since shown little sign of recovery. Several factors have been identified as key threats to this populat...
Article
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Cook Inlet beluga (CIB), Delphinapterus leucas, have not recovered from subsistence overharvest despite conservation efforts initiated in 2000. Reasons for this lack of recovery are still unclear with anthropogenic noise identified as a high threat in this population’s recovery plan. Baseline information on CIB habitat use and soundscape characteri...
Article
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Although killer whale (Orcinus orca) predation on humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) is rarely witnessed, resultant scars on humpback flukes provide evidence of non-lethal interactions. Humpback whale photo-identification catalogs from the North Atlantic were used to evaluate humpback flukes (n = 10,957) for the presence and severity of kille...
Article
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1. Killer whales (Orcinus orca) occur seasonally in the eastern Canadian Arctic (ECA), where their range expansion associated with declining sea ice have raised questions about the impacts of increasing killer whale predation pressure on Arctic-endemic prey. 2. We assessed diet and distribution of ECA killer whales using bulk and compound-specific...
Article
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Killer whales (Orcinus orca) occur seasonally in the eastern Canadian Arctic (ECA), where their range expansion associated with declining sea ice have raised questions about the impacts of increasing killer whale predation pressure on Arctic‐endemic prey. We assessed diet and distribution of ECA killer whales using bulk and compound‐specific stable...
Article
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Dit artikel beschrijft een fossiel perioticum uit de collectie van het Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam van een ongedetermineerde orkasoort. Ik probeer te achterhalen om welke orkasoort het gaat en dat doe ik door het fossiele perioticum te vergelijken met periotica van recente en fossiele orka’s. Zo hoop ik erachter te komen of het gaat om een pe...
Article
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In many aquatic taxa, formation traveling can reduce the energetic expenditure of locomotion by exploiting the vorticity trails shed by neighbors or through drafting. Cetaceans, especially odontocetes, often swim in groups; nevertheless, the possibility that whales gain energetic benefits from swimming in formation remains poorly studied, apart fro...
Article
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Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are experiencing increasing environmental pressures, with some ecotypes being identified as endangered, and the development and validation of non-invasive health assessment tools is critical for assessing the well-being of individuals within these endangered populations. Infrared thermography of the blowhole is a non-co...
Article
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The aim of the paper is to identify the features of distribution of cetaceans in ice-free areas of the Barents Sea and adjacent waters in August-November and to characterize their habitat conditions (abiotic factors, distribution relative to mass fish species and macroplankton). The material of the study was the data collected by the Polar branch o...
Article
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Orcas (Orcinus orca) have a worldwide distribution and as apex predators feed on a wide variety of prey, including marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles, cephalopods, teleost fish and elasmobranchs. Historically, there have been few observations of orca predation on large elasmobranch species nor are they commonly identified in the stomach contents...
Preprint
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The hourglass dolphin ( Lagenorhynchus cruciger ) is a small cetacean species of the Southern Ocean, with significance to iwi Māori ( Māori tribes ) of Aotearoa New Zealand as taonga ( treasured/valued ). Due to the remoteness and difficulty of surveying Antarctic waters, it remains one of the least-studied dolphin species. A recent stranding of an...
Article
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Killer whales are an important sentinel species and developing non-invasive methods of health assessments might provide insight for understanding how wildlife health is influenced by ecosystem change. Rectal temperature (RT) is a proxy for core body temperature in managed-care cetaceans, however, this measurement is impractical for free-ranging cet...
Article
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Intra‐population heterogeneity in the behavioural response of predators to changes in prey availability caused by human activities can have major evolutionary implications. Among these activities, fisheries, while extracting resources, also provide new feeding opportunities for marine top predators. However, heterogeneity in the extent to which ind...
Poster
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Animal welfare is becoming increasingly important to society, and new initiatives are emerging such as the creation of sanctuaries to try and improve conditions for animals under human care. Hence, the research of measurable and physiological welfare indicators is needed to monitor the animals’ wellbeing. In this regard, searching for non-invasive...
Article
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There is growing concern about the potential adverse health effects of phthalates (PAEs) on human health and the environment due to their extensive use as plasticizers and additives in commercial and consumer products. In this study, we assessed PAE concentrations in serum samples from aquarium-based delphinids (Tursiops truncatus, n = 36; Orcinus...
Article
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Measuring breathing rates is a means by which oxygen intake and metabolic rates can be estimated to determine food requirements and energy expenditure of killer whales (Orcinus orca) and other cetaceans. This relatively simple measure also allows the energetic consequences of environmental stressors to cetaceans to be understood but requires knowin...
Poster
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To study the communication within a group of animals, the individual calls need to be separated. Receiver arrays provide a non-invasive alternative to on animal tags. Norwegian killer whales that engage in cooperative carousel feeding, are well suited to study group communication with arrays, because the animals vocalize very actively, and stay qui...