The largest recorded Orca

[callmejoe9]

Okay, so this will be my final update in the meantime. The book arrived today. While a neat find, doesn't contain the same articles as the 1965 edition. I recently contacted the Smithsonian libraries and a Maritime library in San Fransisco to help me out as both these institutions have what I need. It seems these books have copyright that prevents our access online (Gonna fix that one day, I swear). In case I don't get a timely response or help from either, I am making a trip to D.C. to visit a family member next month. I'll be able to physically go there and read those books. I don't comprehend Russian, but I have enough contextual knowledge to where I can recognize Sleptov's name and recognize when lengths and weights are being discussed. I am going to document everything once I am there and come back. ( I am not just doing this for just this thread, weight-length regressions for cetaceans are my general hobby/research goal). Until then, here's what I have now since I don't want my own ambitions to leave the rest of you guys in the dark.

My current regression for all my specimens is precisely  0.0000689573252146858(Length)^2.75338179157342; N=74; R^2=0.9428

However, for my final analysis, I aimed to do a series of sub-category regressions for varying factors like living status (wild vs captive), regional varation, and ecotype variation. I consider my current dataset incomplete without Sleptsov's data as he likely had specimens from both North Pacific and Southern hemisphere orcas.

At these parameters, a typical male of 6.5-7.6m is 3,834kg-5896kg for my regression; 3689kg-5519kg for Bigg and Wolman; 4,475kg-7,084kg from Mikhalev's. Mikhalev's dataset is likely full of heavier individuals ( I will expand on this once my dataset is complete so I can do subcategory regressions).

For a maximum-sized male of 945cm (Nishikawi and Handa, 1958) I have 10,742kg for mine, 9,677kg for B&W, and 13,436 for Mikhalev's.



Max/Min

245cm,239kg / 860cm, 9,900kg 


Sex breakdown

Male (N= 32)

Female (N=42)

Regional breakdown

ENP (N=48)

WNP (N=11)

North Atlantic ( N=7)

Southern Hemisphere (6)

Unknown (N=2)


Here's what I have for specimens of known ecotype

Transient (N=9)

Residents (N=6)

N.Atlantic Type 1 (N=7)


 All of the transients were from the Yamada 2007 Paper, they were genetically confirmed to be Transients. It's very likely that most of the whales from the Bigg and Wolman paper were likely residents, but I couldn't be 100%. The residents I did ID were whales whom were named in their respective paper so I could confirm the individual's identity. All the North Altantics (aside Tilikum) were from Kastelein's series of papers of captive indviduals. I also categorized the captive individuals: Born wild, Live capture ; Born Wild, matured captive ; Born captive. In earlier papers by Griffin, Burgess, and Newman, whales were directly named. In newer papers by Best and Kastelein, the whale's names were kept anonymous, but some of these I was able to definitely ID. Here's their documented length and weights for these whales.

Moby Doll- 467cm, 1040kg.

Namu-660cm,3600kg

Shamu 1- She's in the regression at multiple points in here life, largest of these was 450cm and 1358kg

A whale not directly named, but most likely Skana based on her size and year, 4.7m and 1136kg.

Tanouk- 5.6m, 2900kg

Tilikum- 6.9m, 5318kg at the estimated age of 27.

For Bigg and Wolman's paper, I approximated each data point with a high-res screesnhot, a slight rotation and measured each point precisely at the center using pixel count. Using specimens from this sample cited in other literate, I can confirm all lengths are within 1-2cm and those with larger weights (>1000kg) are within 99% accuracy. Since both the 50cm and 1000kg increments were 400pixels, the kilograms were likely off on the order of a few 10kgs. This will affect calves more than approximations for mature adults.

Sources

Best, Meÿer, Thornton, M., Kotze, D., Seakamela, M., Hofmeyr, G., Wintner, Weland, & Steinke, D. (2014). Confirmation of the occurrence of a second killer whale morphotype in South African waters. African Journal of Marine Science, 36. https://doi.org/10.2989/1814232X.2014.923783

Bigg, M. A., & Wolman, A. A. (1975). Live-Capture Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Fishery, British Columbia and Washington, 1962–73. Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 32(7), 1213–1221. https://doi.org/10.1139/f75-140

The behaviour and training of a Killer whale Orcinus orca at San Diego Sea World—BURGESS - 1968—International Zoo Yearbook—Wiley Online Library. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2022, from https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-1090.1968.tb00484.x

DAHLHEIM, M. E., AND J. E. HEYNING. 1999. Killer whale Orcinus orca (Linnaeus, 1758). Pages 281–322 in S. H. Ridgway and R. Harrison, eds. Handbook of marine mammals, Volume 6. Academic Press, San Diego, CA.

Gambell R, Best PB, Rice DW. 1975. Report on the international Indian Ocean whale marking cruise 24 November 1973– 3 February 1974. Reports of the International Whaling Commission 25: 240–252.

Griffin, E. I., & Goldsberry, D. G. (1968). Notes on the capture, care and feeding of the Killer whale Orcinus orca at Seattle Aquarium. International Zoo Yearbook, 8(1), 206–208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-1090.1968.tb00485.x

Hewlett, K. G., & Newman, M. A. (1968). ‘Skana’, the Killer whale Orcinus orca at Vancouver Public Aquarium. International Zoo Yearbook, 8(1), 209–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-1090.1968.tb00486.x

Heyning, J. E., & Dahlheim, M. E. (1988). Orcinus orca. Mammalian Species, 304, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.2307/3504225

Kastelein, R., & Vaughan, N. (1989). Food consumption, body measurements and weight changes of a female killer whale (Orcinus orca). Aquatic Mammals, 15, 18–21.

Kastelein, R., Walton, S., Odell, D., Nieuwstraten, S., & Wiepkema, P. (2000). Food consumption of a captive female killer whale (Orcinus orca). Aquatic Mammals, 26.

Kastelein, R., KERSHAW, J., BERGHOUT, E., & WIEPKEMA, P. (2007). Food consumption and suckling in Killer whales (Orcinus orca) at Marineland Antibes. International Zoo Yearbook, 38, 204–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-1090.2003.tb02081.x

Mikhalev, Y. (2019). Analysis of the Correlation Between Whale Length and Weight. In Y. Mikhalev (Ed.), Whales of the Southern Ocean: Biology, Whaling and Perspectives of Population Recovery (pp. 31–62). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29252-2_2

Partial catalog of cetacean osteological specimens in Russian museums. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2022, from https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/3475

Sergeant, D. E. (1969). Feeding rates of cetacea. S. 246-258. https://imr.brage.unit.no/imr-xmlui/handle/11250/114686

Sleptsov MM (1961) The weighing results of large and small cetaceans caught in the Far East. Proceedings IMEZh USSR Academy of Sciences. Issue 34, Moscow, pp 144– 150

Wood, G. L. (1976). The Guinness book of animal facts and feats. Guinness Superlatives.

Yamada TK, Uni Y, Amano M et al (2007) Biological indicesobtained from a pod of killer whales entrapped by sea ice offnorthern Japan. Paper SC/59/SM12 presented to the ScientificCommittee, International Whaling Commission, Anchorage

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