Killer Whale

Animal Name: Orca (Killer Whale)

Kingdom: Animalia

Characteristics that place it here:

• multicellular with specialized eukaryotic cells

• rely on other organisms for nourishment

• ingest food and digest food in an internal cavity

• have their own means of locomotion

Phylum: Chordata

Characteristics that place it here:

• bilaterally symmetrical bodies

• at some point of the life cycle they have a pair of gill slits

• have a notochord at some phase of their life cycle

• members often have a head, tail and digestive system with openings at both ends of their bodies

Class: Mammalia

Characteristics that place it here:

• conceive their young within the reproductive troct of the of the mother

• nourish young with milk produced by the mother's mammary glads

• are heterodonts

• they have hair and sweet glands

• are endothermic

• they have 4 chambered heart

• complex nervous system

• large brain

Order: Cetacea

Characteristics that place it here:

• mysticeti (baleen whales)

• odontoceti (toothed whales)

Family: Delphinidae

• medium sized  cetaceans

• dolphins, killer whales, pilot whales, melon-headed whales

Genius: Orcinus

Species: Orcinus Orca

    Killer Whale or Orca live in the Pacific region. They are called Killer Whales because they are the hunters of the sea. They are mostly black white and gray stripes along their body. They eat bigger and smaller whales, sharks, and seals. They do not have any predators because they eat all most all of the animals in the ocean. They do have one predator that is extremely dangerous. That predator is man. For their free time they like to rub their belly's on the sharp rocks on the shore.

Poem:

I was a whale,

A grand, grand whale.

I swam through the others,

And beat them all to the rocky beach of the north.

I rubbed my belly on the rough peorcing rocks.

I got kicked out of the demanding gang,

And swam up as north as I could go.

I was a whale,

And never, never forgot it.

Resources: Animal Diversity Web.  December 10, 2000.  http://www.animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/orcinus/o._orca$narrative.html

Picture: Discovery.  December 10, 2000.  http://www.discovery.com/stories/nature/keikohome/0916azoom.html