Feresa attenuata
The pygmy killer whale is a poorly known and rarely seen oceanic dolphin. It is the only species in the genus Feresa. It derives its common name from sharing some physical characteristics with the orca, also known as the killer whale. It is the smallest cetacean species that has the word "whale" in its common name. Although the species has been known to be extremely aggressive in captivity, this aggressive behavior has not been observed in the wild.
Adam U / NOAA/NMFS/Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Blog 2013 07 08 · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- pygmy killer whalePBDB
- Sits inside
- FeresaPBDB
- Diet
- piscivore, carnivorePBDB, for Delphinidae
- Life habit
- aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
- Environment
- marine,freshwaterPBDB, for Odontoceti
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
11 occurrences of Feresa attenuata on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
11 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Feresa attenuata and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Feresa attenuata and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
No other named taxon is catalogued from any of those sites.
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Feresa attenuata, and this reads all of them.
Entered from
2 references- Cetacean abundance in Hawaiian waters estimated from a summer/fall survey in 200210
- First confirmed record of Feresa attenuata (Delphinidae) for the Northern Brazilian Coast1
Each of the 11 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Feresa attenuata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Adam U / NOAA/NMFS/Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Blog 2013 07 08
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Feresa attenuata was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itFeresa through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1874