A new species of killer whale may have been discovered after two dozen distinctively different orcas were found off southern Chile.
Scientists who today revealed the discovery are waiting for DNA results from a tissue sample to confirm the breakthrough.
For decades there were tales from fishermen and tourists of a mysterious killer whale that did not look like all the others, but experts had never seen one until now.
“This is the most different looking killer whale I’ve ever seen,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration marine ecologist Robert Pitman, who was part of the team that spotted the orcas off Cape Horn at the tip of South America in January.
The differences to other orcas are unmistakeable. The whale’s signature large white eye patch is barely noticeable, while their heads are more rounded and their dorsal fins narrower and pointed.
Mr Pitman said they are so different that they probably cannot breed with other killer whales and are likely to be a new species.
At 20 to 25 feet long, they are slightly smaller than most killer whales. In the Southern Hemisphere, killer whales are considered all one species, classified in types A through C. This one is called type D, or subantarctic killer whales.
But Michael McGowen, marine mammal curator at the Smithsonian, said calling it a new species without genetic data may be premature.
However he added: “I think it’s pretty remarkable that there are still many things out there in the ocean like a huge killer whale that we don’t know about.”
