Wolphin

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This article is about the marine animal. For the magazine of short films, see Wholphin (DVD).

A wolphin or wholphin is a rare hybrid, formed from a cross between a bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus (mother), and a false killer whale Pseudorca crassidens (father). Although they have been reported to exist in the wild, there are currently only two in captivity, both at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii.

The first captive wolphin (whale/dolphin) hybrid occurred in captivity in 1985 where a female bottlenose dolphin and a male false killer whale shared a pool. The wolphin's size, colour and shape are intermediate between the parent species. Named Kekaimalu, she has 66 teeth - intermediate between a bottlenose (88 teeth) and false killer whale (44 teeth). The wolphin proved fertile on December 23 2004, when she gave birth to a calf sired by a bottlenose dolphin; the calf is three quarters dolphin/one quarter whale and thus looks more like a dolphin. Kekaimalu did not mother the calf (this is not uncommon in captive dolphins and was probably not related to her being a hybrid), but it was successfully hand-reared. At 6 months old the calf was already the size of a 1 year old bottlenose.

Both remain in captivity, and are not part of the normal tour at Sea Life Park. The backstage tour must be taken to see the wolphins.

Although the word 'wolphin' is a portmanteau of whale and dolphin, since false killer whales are members of the family Delphinidae, that is, dolphins and not true whales, the wolphin is a kind of dolphin. For more detail on the ambiguity of the term, see whale. Herds of false killer whales and bottlenose dolphins associate together in the wild and there are unsubstantiated reports of natural hybrids between the two species.

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