Pseudorca
Pseudorca is a genus of cetaceans with three members which include Pseudorca yokoyamai, Pseudorca yuanliensis and Pseudorca crassidens, of which P. crassidens is the only extant member.

Juan Ortega · CC BY 3.0 · 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
- false killer whalePBDB
- Sits inside
- GlobicephalinaePBDB
- 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 least 3.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
30 occurrences of Pseudorca on record. 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
30 occurrences- Pliocene20%
- Pleistocene27%
- Holocene53%
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.
Found in
9 formations
- Sanuki Formation2
- Yorktown Formation · Chesapeake Group2
- Tangahoe Formation1
- Greta Siltstone Formation1
- Umegase Formation1
- Nakazato Formation1
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The named rock units Pseudorca has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
493 taxa- Ceratoscopelus maderensis2 sites
- Delphinidae2 sites
- Delphinus2 sites
- Gadus2 sites
- Melanitta nigra2 sites
- Mysticeti2 sites
- Tursiops truncatus2 sites
- <Brotulid>1 site
- Acanthocybium solandri1 site
- Accipitridae1 site
- Acipenser1 site
- Acipenser oxyrhynchus1 site
- Actinocythereis1 site
- Actinocythereis captionis1 site
- Acuticythereis1 site
- Aenocyon dirus1 site
- Aethiinae1 site
- Aetobatus1 site
- Agonidae1 site
- Alca1 site
- Alca ausonia1 site
- Alca carolinensis1 site
- Alca minor1 site
- Alca olsoni1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Pseudorca, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
18 references- Cetacean abundance in Hawaiian waters estimated from a summer/fall survey in 200211
- A list of fossil cetaceans in Japan2
- On some fossil cetaceans of Japan2
- Determining the ages of sub-fossil cetacean remains, found in the Carse of Stirling, Scotland1
- A Pseudorca-like dolphin from the Pleistocene of Rhodes (Greece): Toward the establishment of the extant delphinid stock (Cetacea, Odontoceti)1
- Ancient whale exploitation in the Mediterranean: the archaeological record1
- I cetacei fossili del Museo Sardo di Geologia e Paleontologia Domenico Lovisato (Cagliari)1
- Fossil Pinnipedia and Cetacea1
- Neogene Cetacea of the Lee Creek Phosphate Mine, North Carolina1
- Taphonomic variation despite catastrophic mortality: Analysis of a mass stranding of false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens), Gulf of California, Mexico1
- Additions to the Pleistocene Mammal Faunas of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia1
- Extraordinary fossil records of Cetacea from Pleistocene in Taiwan1
Each of the 30 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. 6 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Pseudorca
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Juan Ortega
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Pseudorca”
- 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 itGlobicephalinae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Reinhardt 1862)