Scientists were studying acoustic and social interactions among whales and dolphins off the North Pacific's Commander Islands (map) when the team noticed a six-foot-tall (nearly two-meter-tall) white dorsal fin jutting above the waves—hence the whale's new name: Iceberg.

"The reaction from the team for the encounter, which happened on an ordinary day for spotting and photographing the whales, was one of surprise and elation," researcher Erich Hoyt said via email. Though he wasn't aboard the boat, Hoyt co-directs the Far East Russia Orca Project (FEROP), which had organized the expedition.

Though Iceberg's moniker is new, he may be the same killer whale scientists spotted in 2000 and 2008 in Alaska's Aleutian Islands (map), Holly