ORCAS ARE WHALES. NOT ONLY DOLPHINS. GRAHH

You may have heard somewhere, that Orcas aren't whales, and are in fact, dolphins.

While this is somewhat true, there are other factors to consider.

I'm just saying Orcas are also whales, but wherever you look, you won't find that. It's always 'they are dolphins', 'killer whales aren't whales', and I beg to differ.

So, what's a whale?

According to Wikipedia, whales are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals. It is an informal group (not a scientific term, so the definition may vary from person to person). They are related to large members of the order Cetacea (all Cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises)

So, what's an Orca?

Also known as killer whales, orcas are toothed whales and the largest part of the oceanic dolphin family (Delphinidae).

Cetaceans (oceanic mammals including whales, dolphins, and porpoises), are divided into 2 distinct groups, odontocete, and mysticede. (basically toothed whales, and baleen whales)

Orcas are part of the group odontocetes (meaning toothed whale). Wait- toothed what?

This can't truly be the only reason people mix them up, right?

Another argument, is that orcas are too small to be whales.

Think about it, blue whales (the world's largest animal to date (larger than dinosaurs), is around 30m)

Orcas are a lot smaller. Typically growing to about 8.2m

The smallest whale, is the minke whale (which everyone agrees is a whale.)

Minke whales are just smaller than orcas, at around 7.9m

I am resting my case.

In conclusion, yes. Orcas are dolphins (more specifically), but that doesn't mean they aren't whales. It would be like saying lantern sharks aren't fish, because they are sharks.

They. Can. Be. Both.

Here's a small article if you want more: https://us.whales.org/2022/02/23/is-an-orca-killer-whale-a-whale-or-a-dolphin/#:~:text=Orcas%20are%20the%20largest%20species,someone%20is%20in%20their%20classification.

Also this entire blog post is so low quality :((

I'm sorry for that, no one deserves this. It's just that I wrote a fire one before, didn't save it, and closed the tab. You do not want to know what happened after that. (on that one I had like millions of arguments, and taxonomy.) Really, very really sorry for this, and I hope I learn from my mistakes heh