A new sighting of killer whale, Orcinus orca, in Caribbean inshore waters off Colombia

Abstract

Killer whales, Orcinus orca, are known to be one of the most widespread cetaceans, inhabiting all the oceans of the world, but their presence in the Southern Caribbean has been scarcely recorded up to date. An unusual sighting of a killer whale is described for the first time in inshore waters of the Gulf of Morrosquillo. The whale was sighted on 22 March 2015 and it was a solitary individual of unrecognized sex that showed ongoing diving and surfacing behavior at a site 6.3 km from the coast with depths between 20 and 24 m. Its occurrence could be related to favorable environmental and oceanographic conditions and to the potential effect of recent seismic offshore oil and gas operations in the gulf, which may impact a whale’s location and behavior. This report contributes to the scarcity of information about the distribution of O. orca in the Caribbean Sea along the coast of Colombia.

Avistamientos de <i>Orcinus orca</i> (Linnaeus, 1758) (Cetartiodactyla: Odontoceti: Delphinidae) en el Pacífico costarricense (1990-2020)

“…Teniendo en cuenta la diversidad de cetáceos que se pueden encontrar en estas aguas (May-Collado, 2009), puede ser que pasaran desapercibidas debido a una menor cantidad de actividades ecoturísticas respecto al Pacífico. Recientes reportes de orcas en la costa Caribe de Colombia, cerca de la frontera con Panamá (Franco & Delgadillo, 2021) indican que, tal vez con un mayor esfuerzo de muestreo, se pueda registrar, de manera más exacta, su presencia en el Caribe de Costa Rica.…”