Mammals of the WorldShort-finned Pilot Whale
Globicephala macrorhynchus
- Order
- Artiodactyla
- Family
- Delphinidae
- Genus
- Globicephala
- IUCN status
- LC
- Distribution
- American Samoa|Angola|Anguilla|Antigua and Barbuda|Aruba|Australia|Bahamas|Bangladesh|Barbados|Belize|Benin|Bermuda|Bonaire|Sint Eustatius|Saba|Brazil|Brunei|Cape Verde|Cambodia|Cameroon|Canada|Cayman Islands|Chile|Cocos Islands|Colombia|Comoros|Republic of the Congo|Democratic Republic of the Congo|Cook Islands|Costa Rica|Cuba|Curaçao|Cote d'Ivoire|Djibouti|Dominica|Dominican Republic|Ecuador|El Salvador|Equatorial Guinea|Eritrea|Fiji|French Guiana|French Polynesia|Gabon|Gambia|Ghana|Grenada|Guadeloupe|Guam|Guatemala|Guinea|Guinea-Bissau|Guyana|Haiti|Honduras|India|Indonesia|Iran|Jamaica|Japan|Kenya|Kiribati|North Korea|South Korea|Liberia|Madagascar|Malaysia|Maldives|Marshall Islands|Martinique|Mauritania|Mauritius|Mayotte|Mexico|Micronesia|Morocco|Mozambique|Myanmar|Namibia|Nauru|New Caledonia|New Zealand|Nicaragua|Nigeria|Niue|Northern Marianas|Oman|Pakistan|Palau|Panama|Papua New Guinea|Peru|Christmas Island|Philippines|Pitcairn|Portugal|Puerto Rico|Russia|Réunion|Saint Helena|Saint Kitts and Nevis|Saint Lucia|Sint Maarten|Saint Vincent and the Grenadines|Samoa|São Tomé and Príncipe|Saudi Arabia|Senegal|Seychelles|Sierra Leone|Singapore|Solomon Islands|Somalia|South Africa|Spain|Sri Lanka|Suriname|Taiwan|China|Tanzania|Thailand|East Timor|Togo|Tonga|Trinidad and Tobago|Turks and Caicos Islands|Tuvalu|United States|Vanuatu|Venezuela|Vietnam|British Virgin Islands|United States Virgin Islands|Wallis and Futuna|Yemen|Montserrat?|Norfolk Island?|Tokelau?|Uruguay?
- Realm
- Marine
Other names: Pacific Pilot Whale|Southern Blackfish|Southern Pothead Whale
About this species
- Size
- Up to 7.2m; Pacific males 4–6m, females 3–5m
- Weight
- Up to 4,000kg
- Diet
- Fast-moving squid, typically at about 700m depth
- Habitat
- Coastal and pelagic waters in temperate and tropical seas
The short-finned pilot whale is a stocky oceanic dolphin with black to dark grey or brown skin, a thick tail stock, a bulbous head and a broad, sickle-shaped dorsal fin. It is told from the long-finned pilot whale by shorter flippers, fewer teeth and a shorter beak. It can reach 7.2 m and 4,000 kg, making it the third-largest oceanic dolphin after the orca and the long-finned pilot whale (Wikipedia, general species account).
It has a worldwide distribution in coastal and pelagic waters of temperate and tropical seas, including the Indian Ocean. It typically travels in pods of 10–30, usually family, but sometimes in groups of several hundred. It pursues fast-moving squid, typically at about 700 m and down to at least 1,018 m, and a pod may spread out up to 800 m when foraging. The cached account is largely about Pacific and Atlantic populations and gives nothing specific to India (Wikipedia, general species account).
Description: Wildlife of India guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)