Exclusive Underwater Footage Captured of Type D Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) off Cape Horn, Chile

We have returned from our voyage at sea for 6 weeks, on the first research expedition ever undertaken to search for Subantarctic or Type D killer whales and have this incredible underwater footage of this unique ecotype of orcas to share with you.

OUR STORY

In January 2019, as an international team of scientists working off the tip of southern Chile, we got our first live look at what might be a new species of killer whale. Called Type D, the whales were previously known only from a beach stranding more than 60 years ago, fishermen’s stories, and tourist photographs.

The first record of the unusual killer whales came in 1955, when 17 animals stranded on the coast of Paraparaumu, New Zealand. Compared to other killer whales, they had more rounded heads, a narrower and more pointed dorsal fin, and a tiny white eyepatch; no whales like this had ever been described, before.

Initially, scientists speculated that the unique look might have been a genetic aberration only seen in with those stranded whales. Then, in 2005, a French scientist showed Bob Pitman, the Team-D Project Leader, photographs of odd-looking killer whales that had taken fish from commercial fishing lines near Crozet Island in the southern Indian Ocean. They had the same tiny eye patches and bulbous heads.
The location, a quarter of the way around the world from New Zealand, suggested that relatives of the stranded whales might in fact be widespread.

Collated sightings over the next few years indicated a distribution around the entire continent of Antarctica, but within subantarctic waters. Because Type D killer whales seemed to avoid the coldest waters, the authors suggested “subantarctic killer whale” as a common name. It was also evident from the few sighting records that this animal lived in offshore waters, in some of the most inhospitable latitudes on the planet: the Roaring 40s and the Furious 50s, known for their strong winds. No wonder it was almost unknown to science!

This year, the stories and photographs finally became real. With support from an anonymous donor and Cookson Adventure Tours, and in collaboration with Centro de Conservación Cetácea, Chile, Pitman assembled an expedition of international whale experts: Bob Pitman and Lisa Ballance from the United States, John Totterdell and Rebecca Wellard from Australia, Jared Towers from Canada, and Mariano Sironi from Argentina. In January 2019, we set sail from Ushuaia, Argentina, on the 22-meter research vessel Australis, to search for the elusive Type D killer whale.

At first, luck did not seem to favour the Australis team—at one point we sat at anchor for eight anxious days, pummelled by 40 to 60 knot winds at Cape Horn. Then, during a brief lull in the weather, we pounded our way back offshore and the team’s fortune changed.

We finally found the animals that Pitman had sought for 14 years.
Our team’s encounter with the distinctive whales came after we spent more than a week at anchor, waiting out the perpetual storms of Cape Horn off southern Chile. It was here that our team of scientists collected three biopsy samples—tiny bits of skin harmlessly taken from the whales with a crossbow dart—from a group of Type D killer whales.

We spent three hours among a group of about 30 whales, which approached the vessel many times. When killer whale vocalization expert Rebecca Wellard towed a hydrophone behind the boat to record Type D calls, whales immediately came over to inspect it. From wide-angle cameras mounted on her hydrophone, she obtained revealing underwater images as the curious whales showed details of their unique color patterning and body shape.

Genetic samples our team collected will help determine whether this animal, with its distinctly different color pattern and body shape, is indeed new to science.

“We are very excited about the genetic analyses to come. Type D killer whales could be the largest undescribed animal left on the planet and a clear indication of how little we know about life in our oceans,” said Bob Pitman, a researcher from NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California.

Unraveling the secrets of these unique killer whales has now moved from the blustery Southern Ocean to the laboratory, where NOAA scientists will analyze DNA from the skin samples. “These samples hold the key to determining whether this form of killer whale represents a distinct species,” said Pitman.

The Type D killer whale images brought back by team Australis serve as a reminder of how little we know about life in our oceans. In the next few months, the DNA samples should finally reveal just how different the Type D is from other killer whales.


You can read more about Project ORCA and our dedicated orca research here:

www.projectorca.com.au
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