★ Winner of the 2022 Prosveshcheniye Prize in natural science.
★ A fascinating work on killer whales, written by an authority on cetacean acoustics who takes readers deep into polar field work to uncover orca social structure and survival status.
★ By Dr. Olga Filatova, lead researcher at the Laboratory of Vertebrate Behaviour, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University.
★ For scientists working in cold seas, a calm overcast day at sea is a day full of hope, when encounters with killer whales are possible. This book invites you to experience the journey of exploring uncertainty and finally lifting the veil on the true face of killer whales.
★ Ideal for naturalists and wildlife lovers.

Killer whales always evoke contradictory emotions—from fanatical love to fearful hatred—but few remain indifferent. Some regard them as “intelligent fellow-beings”, others call them cunning killers… Yet hardly anyone truly understands their essence. How do they live and communicate? What is an orca family like? What distinguishes fish-eating from mammal-hunting orcas? No one is more authoritative and vivid than biologist Olga Filatova, a specialist in mammal acoustic communication and cetacean behaviour, who takes readers into the field with killer whales and other whales, witnessing the hardships and excitement of expedition life. The work of cetologists is far from the romance portrayed on screen; instead it consists of long hours at sea, waiting on shore in biting cold or blazing sun, fruitless searches, and the constant anxiety of missing key data—this is the daily routine of researchers. Yet the tedium is eventually repaid by the incomparable joy of discovery, the cognitive carnival of witnessing what no one has seen before.

【Author】Olga Filatova
Lead researcher at the Laboratory of Vertebrate Behaviour, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Doctor of Biological Sciences. She has studied killer whales since 2000, participated in expeditions in the Far East seas and Iceland, and is a core member of the Far-East Russian Orca Project (FEROP) and the Russian Cetacean Habitat Project (RCHP).