Danbooru

Tag Alias: killer_whale -> orca

Posted under General

I'm for certainly the first three, though I question the utility, since Danbooru isn't really a biological taxonomy, nor an archive of animal art.

As for orca → whale, I don't know if that is necessarily a good idea. While I and probably most people intuitively consider Orcas whales, technically speaking they are huge dolphins, so that might be misleading.

I think it'd be outright wrong to call a smaller dolphin a whale, despite both being fairly closely related cetaceans, and what applies for the smaller presumably ought to apply for the larger.

As for the common name, I'd say it's more along the lines of "Koala bear", which is called a bear, though certainly not one technically speaking.

Also, I think they are "killer whales" not because they kill whales, but rather more because they are obvious predators (that kill large animals) and happen to look like small whales.

Updated

unicogirl said:
The Orca is called Killer Whale because they are large dolphins capable of killing whales. ^_^;

No they're not. They're capable of killing dolphins and seals. Though that really shows the root of the confusion, "whale" can be used both to mean all cetaceans, or cetaceans excluding delphinoidea, which an orca is itself, but it's also big enough visually to be considered a "proper" whale. So whether you consider calling them "killer whales" correct depends on your usage of the word. But orca is a better term either way.

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