Oscar Wilde famous said 'The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.' Did you know about the false killer whale? No one seems to have made a Hollywood movie about them. For shame. And what is worse than being called a 'killer whale'? The false whale shares a lot of qualities with its celebrity namesake, though they belong to a separate genera - pseudorca - Latin for 'false killer whale', the specific name crassidens referring to the heavy/dense nature of the teeth. It was named by Richard Owen (a contraversial but amazing fellow who was responsible for getting the Natural histroy Museum established in South Kensington - he also invented the word 'dinosaur'.
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| 'Wholphin' cross between pseudorca and bottlenose dolphin |
Like orca, pseudorca hunt and kill whales as part of their diet. They are seldom seen alive, though there is some good footage available including this excellent video showing clicking and whistling as well. They can be found all over the world but very little is known about their possible population. One interesting thing to say is that in captivity a pseudorca have mated with bottlenosed dolphins, once producing a viable calf in Hawaii. There is no evidence that such hybrids occur in the wild. They are interestingly a very intermediate mix, in terms of teeth, where a bottlenose has about 88 teeth and a false killer whale has 44, the hybrid has 66 and grow to an intermediate size. It is the cetacean equivalent to a mule (cross between a horse and a donkey).
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