The largest recorded Orca

[GuateGojira]

Good question. Besides, there is the problem that we don't know how these orcas were measured. I infer they were in straight line, but we don't know.

I think we need to investigate the source of Nishiwaki and Hanada (1958), which seems to be the source of the data. I think that the figure of 10 meters is more an approximation than an actual figure, the real "record" from Japan, according with this source, should be the male of 9.4 m.

Interestingly, Foote et al. (2009) quotes a male from Scotland with a total length of 8.45 m, while Pitman et al. (2007) quotes a maximum of 9.2 m from North Atlantic/Norway, with other similar sized animals from the Soviet Antarctic whaling data and in the Japan coastal waters.

These are actually measured animals, which add reliability to the claims. At the moment, Heyning & Dahlheim (1988) only mention that males of up to 9.8 m have been reported, but for me, this sounds more like those "hearsay" reports in literature.

More data incoming in next posts. [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]
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