| Species fact sheet | by Global Register of Migratory Species - www.groms.de |
| Use the GROMS database for dynamic search for migratory species, new links and references. |
| Orcinus orca | Linnaeus, 1758 |
| Synonym: | |
| Family: | Delphinidae |
| Order: | Cetacea |
| English: | Killer whale |
| French: | Orque, Epaulard |
| Spanish: | Orca, Espardarte |
| German: | Schwertwal (There's a German version of this page!) |
| Norwegian: | Spekkhogger (There's a Norwegian version of this page!) |
| Migration: | partial |
| Regions: | Caribbean Islands, East Asia, Europe, Mesoamerica, North Africa, North America, North Asia, Oceania, South & Southeast Asia, South America, Sub-Saharan Africa |
“Residents show strong movements associated with the coastal migrations of salmon. [...] Off the northern coast of Norway, a population of killer whales moves seasonally in relation to the migration pattern of its principle prey, herring (Similä, 1997).”
(Ford JKB, 2002, Killer Whale - Orcinus orca, In: Encyclopedia of marine mammals, Perrin WF, Würsig B, Thewissen JGM (eds), 669-676, Academic Press, San Diego)
More about whales and dolphins from:
Riede, K. (2001): Global Register of Migratory Species. Weltregister wandernder Tierarten. (p. 64-68)
Recommended link(s):
| ARKive | Orca (Orcinus orca): description, pictures, movies... |
| WDCS | Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society |
| Australian Museum | australian museum online - factsheets: Killer Whale (Orca) |
| OBIS-SEAMAP | Ocean Biogeographic Information System - Spatial Ecological Analysis of Megavertebrate Populations taxonomy, discription, distribution (map), ecology & behaviour, feeding & prey, threats & status of the Killer whale |
| Wikipedia | |
| www.killerwhale.org | British Columbia Wild Killer Whale Adopting Program |
| MarineBio.org | |
| sea.unep-wcmc.org | UNEP-WCMC Species Database (German/English), showing taxonomy ("Names"), distribution ("Verbreitung"), status ("Status"), legal sources ("Legal"), text references ("Referenzen"), connotations ("Anmerkungen"), links to other databases ("Betriebsmittel"), and (links to) pictures (on other homepages) ("Photos") concerning the Killer whale |
| www.acsonline.org | American Cetacean Society Fact Sheet (on killer whales) |
| NBN Gateway | National Biodiversity Network - Interactive map of Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) |
| www.nsrl.ttu.edu | Natural Science Research Laboratory at the Museum of Texas Tech University: The Mammals of Texas - Online Edition |
| www.orca.online.fr | (page from France about killer whales - with textes both in French and English!) |
| forskning.no | (a Norwegian page about satellite tracking of killer whales: Studies on interactions between killer whales and herring) |
| dbh.nsd.uib.no | Database for statistics about higher education (DBH), NFI project report - Satellite tracking of killer whales: Studies on interactions between killer whales and herring (project presentation and a summary, which unfortunately is in Norwegian only) |
| www.orcalab.org | OrcaLab is a small land based whale research station on Hanson Island, northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada |
| Animal Diversity Web | University of Michigan - Museum of Zoology |
To gather more information about whales in general see the link collection at connotea.org: cetacea
Please help us by updating our link collection via connotea!
Feedback: mail to: Klaus Riede
(Last update: 11.7.2007 by A. Tappenhölter)