Orca
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Orca
Mammal
The largest member of the dolphin family, a powerful black-and-white hunter that lives in tight family pods, each with its own calls and hunting traditions.
Name Story
Orcinus orca
means “the whale from the kingdom of the dead”
What does its name mean?
- Orcinus — belonging to Orcus, the underworld — the realm of the deadLatin (Orcus, the Roman god of death)
- orca — a great sea-beast or whaleLatin
- killer whale — thought to be a flipped-around 'whale killer'English
Its names sound as fearsome as the animal: the Latin means "from the kingdom of the dead", and "killer whale" is thought to come from sailors' "whale killer", after they watched orcas hunt even great whales. One last surprise — despite its name, the orca is really the largest kind of dolphin.