Highly gregarious, this cetacean lives in groups numbering from dozens to hundreds or even thousands of individuals and feeding mainly on squid. Pilot whales are one of the species that will mass strand, a phenomenon in which an entire school beaches itself. Scientists have been unable to agree on a cause for this behaviour.

Pilot whales have been kept in oceanariums, where they are sometimes trained to perform, and the U.S. Navy has attempted to train pilot whales to attach devices to stray torpedoes. In some areas pilot whales are still hunted for meat and oil; in the Faroe Islands they are captured by first frightening the whales by making noise in the water, then driving them ashore to be killed.

Pilot whales are members of the dolphin family, Delphinidae. The origin of the common name is unclear, but two species are generally recognized: the short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) and the long-finned pilot whale (G. melas). They are similar in appearance except for the pronounced difference in flipper length between the two species. Long-finned pilot whales are found in colder waters than the short-finned species. Geographically isolated populations are sometimes considered separate species.