Page 417 - (DK) Ocean - The Definitive Visual Guide

MAMMALS 415

ORDER CETACEA With its conspicuous black-and-white prey. Their diet includes fish, squid,
markings, the killer whale, or orca, birds, seals, and other whales. Their PODS AND CLANS
Killer Whale is—despite its name—the largest and hunting strategy is remarkably varied:
most striking member of the dolphin they deliberately upend ice floes to tip An average killer whale pod
Orcinus orca family (Delphinidae). Apart from its seals into the sea, and they even lunge contains 20 animals, which stay
LENGTH 18–30 ft bold patterning, its most eye-catching onto beaches to catch seals lying near together for life, often sharing
(5.5–9 m) feature is its huge dorsal fin, which is the waterline. Intelligent, vocal, and care of the young. Pods within
WEIGHT Up to 10 tons up to 6 ft (1.8 m) high in older males. highly sociable, they live in stable the same geographical range
(9 metric tons) It has large, paddle-shaped flippers and groups (pods), which develops their make up a clan—a regional
HABITAT Open waters, a massive, barrel-shaped body that own cultural characteristics. Despite group that is thought to have a
areas of broken sea ice tapers toward streamlined jaws, which their ferocity toward prey animals, distinctive “dialect” that is passed
DISTRIBUTION Tropical, temperate, and polar waters are armed with interlocking teeth up killer whales are easily tamed in on from adults to their young.
worldwide to 2 in (5 cm) long. Killer whales are captivity and have never been known
the largest hunters of warm-blooded to attack humans in the wild. OCEAN LIFE