||| FROM NOAA |||
In summer 2024, the Taxonomy Committee of the Society of Marine Mammalogy—charged with creating a standard classification and naming of marine mammals—reviewed the recently published research. The committee narrowly fell short of the 2/3 majority needed to officially accept the two taxa as a separate species. Rather, the committee recognized that they at least represent two subspecies of killer whale, but species status is still uncertain.
The subspecies have been provisionally designated Bigg’s killer whale, with the scientific name of Orcinus orca rectipinnus, and resident killer whales, Orcinus orca ater. The new subspecies are now recognized in its official list of marine mammal species.
The committee recognized the high level of morphological, genetic, and ecological differentiation among the ecotypes but felt that further investigation was warranted on whether this represented a species- or subspecies-level designation. They wondered whether there might be occasional gene flow and felt there was a need to conduct a large, global-scale analysis to better understand the patterns of differentiation.
New genomic analyses may further clarify global relationships, but collection of additional samples from poorly sampled ecotypes and regions may be needed to address these questions more thoroughly.
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