A photograph showing a breaching all-white orca as it seemingly glowed along the surface of the ocean has been shared across social media platforms and by online publications like The Dodo since at least 2024.
One post on X had received more than 18 million views at the time of this publication.
White Orca photographed off the coast - Hokkaido, Japan
?: Hayakawa pic.twitter.com/qFmOCWN3aM— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 1, 2025
Wildlife photographer N. Hayakawa confirmed to Snopes that these photos authentically showed all-white orcas, and that the images had "not been edited in any way."
Hayakawa posted the photo to Instagram on July 13, 2024, with a caption written in Japanese. When translated using Google Translate, it read:
The group of killer whales was swimming at a speed that the boat, with a maximum speed of 20 knots (36km/h), could not catch up with. There were two white killer whales in the group of 20 to 30 whales.
According to the caption, the photo was taken on June 17, 2024, near Rausu in Hokkaido, Japan, using a Canon EOS R6 Mark II. According to Hayakawa, "three white killer whiles" were spotted in the area in 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2024.
"Two of the three are males, and one is a female or young male," said Hayakawa.
Hayakawa posted other videos and images of the white whales, including the image below identifying one of the whales as having black eyes.
The white orcas were also shown in a video recording of the pod breaching the water surface.
It's unclear whether the orca is truly albino or its white coloring was caused by another medical condition. Animals get their coloring from melanin, a natural pigment found in cells. Genetic mutations in melanin-producing cells called melanocytes can cause conditions that affect the color of hair, fur, skin or feathers. Leucism is a condition caused by a genetic mutation that results in total or partial loss of pigmentation, leaving the skin to have a paler color. Albinism, on the other hand, can result in a complete absence of melanin.
Hayakawa was not the first to capture a pale, white-colored orca. In 2012, a whale named "Iceberg" was photographed off the coast of Kamchatka in eastern Russia. In 2023, whale observers recorded video of an all-white orca calf off the coast of Southern California.
Snopes has looked into other online rumors involving killer whales, including the false claim that radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused 100% infant mortality among orca whales and whether orcas are true whales or members of the dolphin family.