Orcas and pilot whales are both oceanic dolphins, and they are easy to tell apart. Orcas are larger and boldly black and white, with a tall dorsal fin. Pilot whales are dark gray or black, with a bulbous forehead and a dorsal fin set well forward on the back. Orcas eat fish, seals, or even other whales depending on the group, while pilot whales mostly eat squid. Off Iceland, pilot whales have been seen approaching and chasing orcas, and the orcas usually move away.
Pilot whale vs orca at a glance
| Feature | Orca | Pilot whales |
|---|---|---|
| Species | One species, Orcinus orca | Two: long-finned (Globicephala melas) and short-finned (G. macrorhynchus) |
| Length | Males typically 20 to 26 ft (6 to 8 m), largest recorded 32 ft (9.8 m). Females typically 16 to 23 ft (5 to 7 m) | Long-finned 19 to 25 ft. Short-finned 12 to 24 ft |
| Weight | Largest recorded male about 10 metric tons (22,000 lb) | Long-finned 2,900 to 5,000 lb. Short-finned 2,200 to 6,600 lb |
| Color | Black above, white belly, white eye patches, gray saddle patch | Dark gray to black, gray saddle patch behind the fin, white anchor-shaped patch on the chest |
| Head and fin | Dorsal fin up to 6 ft (1.8 m) in large males, 3 to 4 ft in females | Bulbous forehead. Fin set forward and swept back |
| Diet | Varies by group: salmon and other fish, seals, sea lions, porpoises, dolphins, other whales, squid, sharks | Mostly squid, plus some fish and octopus |
| Group size | Pods typically 2 to 15 | Usually 10 to 30, sometimes 100 or more |
| Lifespan | Males average about 30 years, females about 50. Maximums at least 60 and 90 | Long-finned males 35 to 45, females 60 or more. Short-finned up to 45 and 60 |
| Pregnancy | 15 to 18 months | Long-finned 12 to 16 months. Short-finned about 15 months |
| IUCN status | Data Deficient. Southern Residents endangered | Least Concern (both species) |
How can you tell them apart?
- Color. Orcas have a crisp black-and-white pattern with a white belly and a white patch above each eye. Pilot whales are mostly dark, with a gray saddle behind the fin and an anchor-shaped white mark on the chest.
- Head. A pilot whale's forehead, called the melon, is rounded and bulbous. It is one of the quickest field marks.
- Dorsal fin. A large male orca's fin can be up to 6 feet tall. A pilot whale's fin is lower, set toward the front of the back, and sweeps backward.
- Flippers. Long-finned pilot whales have longer flippers, traditionally about one-fifth of body length, compared with about one-sixth for short-finned. The two pilot whale species overlap and are hard to separate at sea.
- Size. A big male orca can weigh three times as much as a big pilot whale, or more.
For more on pilot whale anatomy, see pilot whale teeth.
Are pilot whales and orcas related?
Yes. Both belong to the dolphin family, Delphinidae, even though "whale" is part of their names. A 2011 DNA study placed the orca as the sister branch of the rest of the subfamily Globicephalinae, the group that includes the pilot whales (Vilstrup and colleagues). They are cousins on neighboring branches, not close lookalikes.
What do they eat?
Orcas split into groups with very different diets. According to NOAA Fisheries, resident orcas eat mainly fish, primarily salmon. Transient orcas eat marine mammals and squid, including seals, sea lions, porpoises, dolphins, and other whales. Offshore orcas eat fish, including sharks. Orcas around Iceland feed mainly on herring.
Pilot whales are squid specialists. The short-finned pilot whale feeds mainly on squid in moderately deep water of 1,000 feet or more, with some fish and octopus. The long-finned pilot whale also takes fish such as cod, herring, and mackerel. NOAA reports dives to about 2,000 feet lasting 10 to 16 minutes, with most feeding at night between 650 and 1,650 feet.
Because their usual prey differs, the two species are unlikely to be competing for food in places like Iceland.
How do their social lives compare?
Both species live in family-based groups. Orca pods are built around mothers and their offspring. Short-finned pilot whales live in stable female-based groups of about 15 to 30, and NOAA notes that groups can join into assemblies of several hundred.
Females of both species live for decades after they stop breeding. NOAA lists orcas and short-finned pilot whales among the few animals known to undergo menopause. Female orcas reach sexual maturity at 10 to 13 years. Short-finned pilot whales have a calf every 5 to 8 years, and long-finned pilot whales every 3 to 6 years.
What happens when pilot whales and orcas meet?
Off Iceland, the two species often clash. A study of sightings from 2007 to 2020 at six Icelandic locations found that long-finned pilot whales typically approached orcas, often at high speed. In most encounters the orcas moved away at moderate speed or disappeared. In about a third, high-speed chases followed, with both species porpoising (Selbmann and colleagues, Acta Ethologica, 2022).
In 2026, the same research group published an experiment in Scientific Reports. When tagged orcas heard recordings of pilot whale calls, they bunched together more tightly, changed their calling, turned away, and sped up (ScienceAlert). The researchers concluded the calls alone were enough to cause avoidance.
Why pilot whales do this is unsettled. The authors considered competition for food, which looks unlikely given their different diets, and mobbing, where animals gather to harass a predator. Pilot whales are attracted to orca sounds, which fits the mobbing idea.
The risk to pilot whales is real elsewhere. Orcas are known to chase, attack, or kill both long-finned and short-finned pilot whales in other regions, according to the authors of a 2025 Iceland paper. Only one possible predation on a pilot whale has been reported in Iceland (Baumgartner and colleagues, 2025).
Did orcas adopt a pilot whale calf?
Not as far as researchers can say. That 2025 paper describes two encounters off south Iceland, in 2022 and 2023, in which a newborn pilot whale was with a group of fish-eating orcas. The authors found no clear signs of predation. They called the behavior suggestive of play, practice hunting, or caregiving, but said the true motivation remains unknown. In the second encounter an orca lifted the calf out of the water, and the calf was not seen with the group the next day. Describing it as adoption goes further than the evidence.
Threats and conservation
Pilot whales are often involved in mass strandings, which NOAA suggests may relate to their strong social bonds. The causes are not fully understood. Bycatch in fishing gear is a leading cause of mortality and serious injury for long-finned pilot whales in U.S. waters, and the species is also hunted in the Faroe Islands (ORCA). The IUCN lists both pilot whale species as Least Concern.
Orcas face different pressures. The IUCN lists the species as Data Deficient, but the endangered Southern Resident population is in trouble. NOAA's July 2025 census counted 74 whales. For more, see the orca species profile, and for another look-alike, false killer whale vs orca.
Sources
- Killer whale species profile (NOAA Fisheries)
- Short-finned pilot whale species profile (NOAA Fisheries)
- Long-finned pilot whale species profile (NOAA Fisheries)
- Occurrence and interactions of pilot whales and killer whales in Iceland (Selbmann et al., 2022)
- Interactions between killer whales and neonate long-finned pilot whales off south Iceland (Ecology and Evolution, 2025)