ABOVE: Type D killer whales have blunt heads and tiny white eye patches. J.P. SYLVESTRE, SOUTH GEORGIA, 2011
A team of scientists has observed a group of whales off the southern coast of Chile that may be a new species of orca, NOAA announced yesterday (March 7). Whether these Type D killer whales, which differ from other orcas in their body shape and coloring, are a new species depends on the analysis of DNA the researchers collected.
The distinctive whales are a little smaller and have blunter heads and narrower and pointier dorsal fins than other varieties of Southern Hemisphere killer whales, which are all one species, labeled Types A, B, or C, according to The Associated Press. Type D whales also have a smaller white eye patch than the other whales. “This is the most different looking killer whale I’ve ever seen,” Robert Pitman, a NOAA marine ecologist who ...
