The false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens) is a cetacean, and the third largest member of the oceanic dolphin family (Delphinidae). It lives in temperate and tropical waters throughout the world. As its name implies, the false killer whale shares characteristics, such as appearance, with the more widely known Orca (killer whale). Like the orca, the false killer whale attacks and kills other cetaceans. However, the two dolphin species do not belong to the same genus.
The false killer whale has not been extensively studied in the wild; much of the data about it has been derived by examining stranded animals.
The species is the only member of the Pseudorca genus.
Read more about False Killer Whale: Population and Distribution, Description, Human Interaction, Beachings, Conservation
Famous quotes containing the words false, killer and/or whale:
“The barriers of conventionality have been raised so high, and so strangely cemented by long existence, that the only hope of overthrowing them exists in the union of numbers linked together by common opinion and effort ... the united watchword of thousands would strike at the foundation of the false system and annihilate it.”
—Mme. Ellen Louise Demorest 1824–1898, U.S. women’s magazine editor and woman’s club movement pioneer. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 203 (January 1870)
“Developing the muscles of the soul demands no competitive spirit, no killer instinct, although it may erect pain barriers that the spiritual athlete must crash through.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)