Adorable baby orca spotted off San Juan Islands

A group of wild orcas has been spotted off the San Juan Islands with a cute yellowish-black newcomer in its midst: A small baby orca.

The calf is a member of the so-called "K-pod," a group of 20 orcas, also known as killer whales, that spend much of their lives in the open ocean.

The K-Pod, however, is just one part of the larger Southern Resident population, which is made up of three pods and roughly 90 orcas.

Each spring and summer they vacation in the waters off the Washington coast where they're monitored by the Washington-based Center for Whale Research.

Researchers first spotted the baby – estimated to be about two months old – on Tuesday as it was frolicking with other orcas in the K-pod.

Its mother, a 31-year-old known to researchers as K-14, has given birth four times before, but twice the babies have died, said center staffer Erin Heydenreich who was one of the first to spot the pod this week.

"It's fairly significant because we've lost several of them over the last few years," Heydenreich said. "It's very important for them to continue reproducing."

The calf is expected to lose its mottled yellowish skin as it grows older and it'll take about a year before researchers are able to identify its gender.

For now, it's just known as "K-42."