Last modified: Tuesday September 24th, 2002 |
alt.animals.dolphins FAQ (part 2 of 3) |
Selected newsgroup headersNewsgroups: alt.animals.dolphins,alt.answers,news.answers Subject: Dolphin FAQ (2/3) Summary: Resources and taxonomy part of alt.animals.dolphins FAQ Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Archive-name: animals/dolphin-faq/part02 Posting-Frequency: monthly Last-modified: 2002/09/24 Maintainer: Jaap van der Toorn <jaap@rosmarus.com> This is part 2 of the FAQ for alt.animals dolphins. This document is maintained by Jaap van der Toorn ( jaap@rosmarus.com). The intention is to post the latest version of the FAQ on the newsgroup once a month. Please direct any remarks, suggestions, corrections and additions to the above e-mail address. |
There is an excellent list of books, videos and CDs on dolphins, which is
put together by Trisha Lamb-Feuerstein. This list is updated on a regular
basis. You can find that on the Web at the following URL:
http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/whale/literature/biblio.html
There is a searchable database at the site of the Dolphin Study Group of the National University of Singapore at: http://dsg.sbs.nus.edu.sg/combib.html. They also have a picture database at: http://dsg.sbs.nus.edu.sg/pictures/
Yes, there are quite a few. You can find them at the Web site mentioned above.
Most marine mammal Web sites are listed on the Marine Mammal Links page: http://whale.wheelock.edu/whalenet-stuff/interwhale.html
Similar information (grouped by category) can be found at Wesley Elsberry's site: http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/marspec.html. Another good starting point is the Aquatic Resources section at the New England Aquarium site at: http://www.neaq.org/.
Yes, there are a few e-mail discussion lists, some dealing with marine mammals in general, others with dolphins only. The following are discussion lists. You can participate in the discussions, if you play by the rules set for the group (you will receive instructions once you join).
To join send an e-mail
To: listserv@uvvm.uvic.ca Subj: Body: subscribe marmam Yourfirstname Yourlastnamename
You can also follow the discussion on the eScribe mailing list archive at: http://www.escribe.com/science/marmam/
To join send an e-mail
To: Mailbase@jiscmail.ac.uk Subj: Body: join ecs-all firstname (firstname ...) lastname stop
There are also e-mail newsletters and mailing lists you can join. Subscription information can be found on the associated web sites. Some examples:
The taxonomy of whales and dolphins is still subject to change. But in the most common view, the family of dolphins (Delphinidae) consists of 32 different species. Closely related families (the white whales (Monodontidae) and river dolphins (Platanistidae) have 2 resp. 5 species).
The bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)
The killer whale (Orcinus orca). Male killer whales can grow up to 9.6 m (31.5 ft).
There is not really one smallest species. The smallest species include:
True dolphins (Delphinidae):
River dolphins (Platanistidae):
Porpoises (Phocoenidae):
Dolphins and porpoises belong to different whale families. The most obvious differences are:
Dolphins are marine mammals, but there is also a fish species that's often called "dolphin" or "dolphin fish". Its scientific name is Coryphaena hippurus. To avoid confusion with the mammal species its Spanish name "dorado" or its Hawaiian name "mahi mahi" is often used. Because of the confusion between the mammal and the fish species dolphins have in the past erroneously been called porpoises, especially in some US regions, where the fish species is common. In older books you can encounter the name "bottlenose porpoise" for the bottlenose dolphin, for instance. Dolphins and porpoises are however members of different whale families (see 4.5). You can find more information about the dolphin fish, including its common name in other languages, in the FishBase database, online at http://www.fishbase.org/
Cetaceans is a collective term for whales, dolphins and porpoises. The name is derived from the scientific (Latin) name of these animals: Cetacea.
For most species, the answer is probably "No", although it is very difficult to get a good estimate of the size of populations on these water living creatures. A number of species are endangered: the Indus river dolphin, the baiji (there are only about 100 left), the vaquita, the northern right whale and the blue whale. Another group of species is listed as "vulnerable" (which means that they are not in immediate danger of extinction, but also far from safe). These are: the Ganges river dolphin, the boto, the bowhead, the southern right whale, the sei whale, the fin whale and the humpback whale.
Eubalaena glacialis | northern right whale |
Eubalaena australis | southern right whale |
Balaena mysticetus | bowhead whale |
Caperea marginata | pygmy right whale |
Balaenoptera musculus | blue whale |
Balaenoptera physalus | fin whale |
Balaenoptera borealis | sei whale |
Balaenoptera edeni | Bryde's whale |
Balaenoptera acutorostrata | minke whale |
Megaptera novaeangliae | humpback whale |
Eschrichtius robustus | gray whale |
Physeter macrocephalus | sperm whale |
Kogia breviceps | pygmy sperm whale |
Kogia simus | dwarf sperm whale |
Berardius bairdii | Baird's beaked whale |
Berardius arnuxii | Arnoux' beaked whale |
Tasmacetus shepherdi | Shepherd's beaked whale |
Ziphius cavirostris | Cuvier's beaked whale |
Hyperoodon ampullatus | northern bottlenose whale |
Hyperoodon planifrons | southern bottlenose whale |
Mesoplodon pacificus | Longman's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon hectori | Hector's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon mirus | True's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon europaeus | Gervais' beaked whale |
Mesoplodon ginkgodens | ginkgo-toothed beaked whale |
Mesoplodon grayi | Gray's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon carlhubbsi | Hubbs' beaked whale |
Mesoplodon stejnegeri | Stejneger's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon bowdoini | Andrew's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon bidens | Sowerby's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon layardii | strap-toothed whale |
Mesoplodon densirostris | Blainville's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon peruvianus | Pygmy beaked whale |
Mesoplodon traversii 1) (Mesoplodon bahamondi) |
spade-toothed whale Bahamonde's beaked whale |
Mesoplodon perrini 2) | Perrin's beaked whale |
Steno bredanensis | rough-toothed dolphin |
Sousa chinensis | Indo-Pacific hump-backed dolphin |
Sousa teuszii | Atlantic hump-backed dolphin |
Sotalia fluviatilis | tucuxi |
Tursiops truncatus | bottlenose dolphin |
Stenella longirostris | spinner dolphin |
Stenella clymene | clymene dolphin |
Stenella frontalis | Atlantic spotted dolphin |
Stenella attenuata | pantropical spotted dolphin |
Stenella coeruleoalba | striped dolphin |
Delphinus delphis | common dolphin |
Lagenodelphis hosei | Fraser's dolphin |
Lagenorhynchus albirostris | white-beaked dolphin |
Lagenorhynchus acutus | Atlantic white-sided dolphin |
Lagenorhynchus obliquidens | Pacific white-sided dolphin |
Lagenorhynchus obscurus | dusky dolphin |
Lagenorhynchus australis | Peale's dolphin |
Lagenorhynchus cruciger | hourglass dolphin |
Cephalorhynchus commersonii | Commerson's dolphin |
Cephalorhynchus heavisidii | Heaviside's dolphin |
Cephalorhynchus eutropia | black dolphin |
Cephalorhynchus hectori | Hector's dolphin |
Lissodelphis borealis | northern right whale dolphin |
Lissodelphis peronii | southern right whale dolphin |
Grampus griseus | Risso's dolphin |
Peponocephala electra | melon-headed whale |
Feresa attenuata | pygmy killer whale |
Pseudorca crassidens | false killer whale |
Globicephala melaena | long-finned pilot whale |
Globicephala macrorhynchus | short-finned pilot whale |
Orcinus orca | killer whale |
Orcaella brevirostris | Irrawaddy dolphin |
Delphinapterus leucas | beluga, white whale |
Monodon monoceros | narwhal |
Platanista gangetica | Ganges river dolphin |
Platanista minor | Indus river dolphin |
Inia geoffrensis | boto, Amazon river dolphin |
Lipotes vexillifer | baiji, Yangtze river dolphin |
Pontoporia blainvillei | franciscana, La Plata dolphin |
Phocoena phocoena | harbor porpoise |
Phocoena sinus | vaquita |
Phocoena dioptrica | spectacled porpoise |
Phocoena spinnipinnis | Burmeister's porpoise |
Neophocaena phocaenoides | finless porpoise |
Phocoenoides dalli | Dall's porpoise |
Note: the above list is a commonly used list of cetacean species, but some authors recognize more separate families and species (for instance 2 species of bottlenose dolphins: Tursiops truncatus (bottlenose dolphin) and Tursiops aduncus (Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphin) and 2 or 3 species of common dolphins: Delphinus delphis (shortbeaked common dolphin), Delphinus capensis (longbeaked common dolphin) and Delphinus tropicalis (Arabian common dolphin)). See for instance:
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