“Pods are actually their own matriarchal family groups. Animals born into a pod, stay in the pod their entire lives. This is like living with your mother, aunts, uncles, cousins and brothers and sisters all descendant from your mother’s side of the family for your whole life. It is extremely rare for an Orca from one pod to be accepted or join with another pod of whales. The gene pool gets mixed up by not having any father within the same pod. Each pod has their own ‘dialect’ of communication through various squeaks, burbles, and whistles.
The term “Whale” is a misnomer since the Orca is actually from the dolphin family. We associate “whale” with something very large and they are much larger than the majority of dolphins. They are a whale of a dolphin.”
This quote was taken from the website Whales and Dolphins BC which is a great site to visit if you are interested in more information.