The killer whale or orca is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. Killer whales have a diverse diet, although individual populations often specialize in particular types of prey. Some feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals such as seals and other species of dolphin. They have been known to attack baleen whale calves, and even adult whales. Killer whales are apex predators, as no animal preys on them. A cosmopolitan species, they can be found in each of the world's oceans in a variety of marine environments, from Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas, absent only from the Baltic and Black seas, and some areas of the Arctic Ocean.
Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They do not represent a distinct taxon or systematic grouping, but rather have a polyphyletic relation due to convergent evolution, as in they do not have an immediate common ancestor. They are also unified by their reliance on the marine environment for feeding.
The minke whale, or lesser rorqual, is a species complex of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common minke whale and the Antarctic minke whale. The minke whale was first described by the Danish naturalist Otto Fabricius in 1780, who assumed it must be an already known species and assigned his specimen to Balaena rostrata, a name given to the northern bottlenose whale by Otto Friedrich Müller in 1776. In 1804, Bernard Germain de Lacépède described a juvenile specimen of Balaenoptera acuto-rostrata. The name is a partial translation of Norwegian minkehval, possibly after a Norwegian whaler named Meincke, who mistook a northern minke whale for a blue whale.
The strap-toothed whale, also known as the Layard's beaked whale or the long-toothed whale, is a large mesoplodont with some of the most bizarre teeth of any mammal. The common and scientific name was given in honor of Edgar Leopold Layard, the curator of the South African Museum, who prepared drawings of a skull and sent them to the British taxonomist John Edward Gray, who described the species in 1865.
Shepherd's beaked whale, also commonly called Tasman's beaked whale or simply the Tasman whale, is a cetacean of the family Ziphiidae. The whale has not been studied extensively. Only four confirmed at sea sightings have been made and 42 strandings recorded. It was first known to science in 1937, being named by W. R. B. Oliver after George Shepherd, curator of the Wanganui Museum, who collected the type specimen near Ohawe on the south Taranaki coast of New Zealand's North Island, in 1933.
The Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin is a species of bottlenose dolphin. This dolphin grows to 2.6 m (8.5 ft) long, and weighs up to 230 kg (510 lb). It lives in the waters around India, northern Australia, South China, the Red Sea, and the eastern coast of Africa. Its back is dark grey and its belly is lighter grey or nearly white with grey spots.
Cetacean surfacing behaviour or breaching is a group of behaviours demonstrated by the Cetacea infraorder when they come to the water's surface to breathe. Time intervals between surfacing can vary depending on the species, surfacing style or the purpose of the dive, and some species have been known to dive for up to 85 minutes at a time when hunting. In addition to respiration, cetaceans have developed and used surface behaviours for many other functions such as display, feeding and communication. All regularly observed members of the order Cetacea, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, show a range of surfacing behaviours. Cetacea is usually split into two suborders, Odontoceti and Mysticeti, based on the presence of teeth or baleen plates in adults respectively. However, when considering behaviour, Cetacea can be split into whales and dolphins and porpoises as many behaviours are correlated with size. Although some behaviours such as spyhopping, logging and lobtailing occur in both groups, others such as bow riding or peduncle throws are exclusive to one or the other. It is these energetic behaviours that humans observe most frequently, which has resulted in a large amount of scientific literature on the subject and a popular tourism industry.
Cetacean stranding, commonly known as beaching, is a phenomenon in which whales and dolphins strand themselves on land, usually on a beach. Beached whales often die due to dehydration, collapsing under their own weight, or drowning when high tide covers the blowhole. Several explanations for why cetaceans strand themselves have been proposed, but none have so far been universally accepted as a definitive reason for the peculiar behavior.
The Antarctic fur seal, sometimes called the Kerguelen fur seal, is one of eight seals in the genus Arctocephalus, and one of nine fur seals in the subfamily Arctocephalinae. As its name suggests, the Antarctic fur seal is distributed in Antarctic waters. Around 95% of the world population breeds at the Island of South Georgia.
Cetacean bycatch is the incidental capture of non-target cetacean species such as dolphins, porpoises, and whales by fisheries. Bycatch can be caused by entanglement in fishing nets and lines, or direct capture by hooks or in trawl nets.
The Cetacean Conservation Center is a Chilean NGO dedicated to the conservation of cetaceans and other marine mammals that inhabit the coastal waters of Chile. The CCC also engages in public education and information campaigns at the national and regional level.
The Tethys Research Institute is a non-profit research organisation founded in 1986 to support marine conservation through science and public awareness. The Institute has its headquarters at the Civic Aquarium of Milan, Italy. Tethys' activities are mainly carried out in the Mediterranean Sea, although research programmes have been conducted also in the Black Sea, the North Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean as well as in the Red Sea and Antarctica. The results of these activities have been presented in scientific publications as well as in meetings, workshops and conferences.
The Ocean Park Conservation Foundation, Hong Kong, often referred to by its initialism OPCFHK is the conglomerate of the former Ocean Park Conservation Foundation (OPCF) and The Hong Kong Society for Panda Conservation (HKSPC) established under the Ocean Park Corporation, with effect from 1 July 2005. It is a registered charitable non-governmental organisation.
The Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute (BDRI) is a research and educational centre dedicated to the understanding and conservation of cetaceans and the marine environment in which they live. The Institute's BDRI centre was founded by the biologist Bruno Díaz López in Sardinia, Italy in 2005. In 2014, the BDRI opened a new facility in Galicia, Spain.
The southern elephant seal is one of the two species of elephant seals. It is the largest member of the clade Pinnipedia and the order Carnivora, as well as the largest extant marine mammal that is not a cetacean. It gets its name from its massive size and the large proboscis of the adult male, which is used to produce very loud roars, especially during the breeding season. A bull southern elephant seal is about 40% heavier than a male northern elephant seal, more than twice as heavy as a male walrus, and six to seven times heavier than the largest living terrestrial carnivorans, the polar bear and the Kodiak bear.
The southern bottlenose whale is a species of whale, in the ziphiid family, one of two members of the genus Hyperoodon. Seldom observed and rarely hunted, the southern bottlenose whale is resident in Antarctic waters. The species was first described by English zoologist William Henry Flower in 1882, based on a water-worn skull from Lewis Island, in the Dampier Archipelago, Western Australia.
Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara is an ecologist and conservationist who has bridged the worlds of marine science, conservation and policy.
The Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) is a marine science research organisation in Fife, Scotland. It provides the UK's main science capability in the field of marine mammal biology. It is located at the Gatty Marine Laboratory, part of the University of St Andrews. It was established in 1978, when the Natural Environment Research Council merged its Seals Research Division and Whale Research Unit.
The Swiss Cetacean Society is a Swiss nonprofit organization devoted to the preservation of marine mammals in their natural habitat. Founded in 1997, its headquarters are in Lausanne in Switzerland.
Kit Kovacs is a marine mammal researcher, best known for her work on biology, conservation and management of whales and seals. She is based at the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), Tromsø and is an Adjunct professor of biology, Marine Biology, at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS).
