The world's only known all-white male killer whale has been spotted in the Pacific Ocean off Russia, scientists announced Monday.
The orca, dubbed "Iceberg" by the scientists, was spotted swimming with a pod of 12 others. Iceberg has a 6.5-foot-high dorsal fin and is at least 16 years old, according to a blog post by Erich Hoyt, co-director of the Far East Russia Orca Project.
Check out a photo gallery of albino creatures
The pod was spotted by scientists from universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the waters around the Commander Islands off the Kamchatka Peninsula. The area is part of a marine reserve.
Hoyt wrote that two other white orcas have been seen in area, but that Iceberg is the first fully grown male.
“In many ways, Iceberg is a symbol of all that is pure, wild and extraordinarily exciting about what is out there in the ocean waiting to be discovered,” Hoyt said in a statement.
Hoyt wrote that researchers will return to the waters where Iceberg was spotted this summer in hopes of finding the creature again and determining whether he is an albino or if there is some other reason for his white color.
The researchers hope the presence of Iceberg will help efforts to expand marine reserves along the Russian coast, they said in the statement.
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Oh look! Orcas the way they all should be: WILD! Not the depressed, floppy dorsal finned prisoners in relative bathtubs at a kiddie park.
I thought you were going to say white...
So, doesn't the angle of the large black dorsal fin near the white one look odd? As if it's heading into the white whale, and if it was, that it would be halfway through it?
I think maybe people's eyes are being tricked by the hazy white mark that lies behind the dorsal fin on orcas. The white mark behind the black fin in question makes it look like the fin is in shadow and thus perpundicular (heading into) to the white fin. It is actually parallel to the white fin.
It's a telephoto shot. Everything looks closer together. The whales are not swimming into each other. I think that it's cool that they discovered an albino Killer Whale (dolphin).
Cool whale....actually dolphin. Killer "whales" are amazing animals. Most people don't know that they're actually in the Dolphin family, not the whale family.
I painted him last night...
I am surprised this little bugger is alive. Most albino whales don't last long.
“In many ways, Iceberg is a symbol of all that is pure, wild and extraordinarily exciting about what is out there in the ocean waiting to be discovered,” Hoyt said in a statement.
The aryan nation would be proud!!!
What?? an all-white whale is a "symbol of all that is pure, wild and extraordinarily exciting"... oops,talk about inherent racial bias! Are we sure the black whales were not wearing hoodies???
If the white whale is a "symbol of all that is pure, wild and extraordinarily exciting" Are the black whale not pure? What a crazy comment. Mr Hoyt's creditability I have to question. Who would want to help any charity he support. It must be that he is so dedicated to the study of white whale that he see it as an extension of himself in that he feels inadequate in a world of people with color.
Um.... or that the color white is often connected to purity, innocence. Stop trying to make this a race issue.
Sometimes Orcas will attack polar bears. They need to get the one in a million shot of a white Orca attacking a white polar bear.
Being an odd one is cool though...
It is just another genetic adaptation that the next ice age is coming, because of Global Warming. Everything will be covered with white snow and the whale will be able to stalk its pray better
It is nice to be the odd one though
Awesome!!! Now it's just a matter of time before someone labels it with a price and a ship hunts it down.
they just used paint to edit the photo to make their trip look more interesting.
They should catch one for Sea World, that would be bombastic!
So, there are only three white orcas known in the world, and you think one should be captured and spend the rest of it's life in a small enclosure, performing tricks for you, instead of living it's life in the wild??? Really??? Pretty frickin selfish ...
Ya, just what Seaworld needs, another miserable captive whale...
its really amazing ,is it total white???