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First cases of bird flu in dolphins discovered in the UK

The UK Government has announced that two dolphins and a harbour porpoise have died from...
Kiska the orca

Kiska the ‘world’s loneliest whale’ dies at Canadian theme park

Kiska, dubbed the loneliest whale in the world, has died at Marineland, a zoo and...

Man charged in US for harassing whale

Police in the US are investigating reports of a man known as 'Dolphin Dave' repeatedly...
Gray whale

UN adopts High Seas Treaty to protect the ocean

At the UN 'High Seas Treaty' negotiations in New York, a historic vote for the...

Fossil of river dolphin relative identified after 65 years

The skull of an ancestor of the river dolphins that live today in South Asia, has been identified over 60 years after being discovered in Alaska according to a new scientific paper. Over 25 millions years old, the fossil belongs to a group of dolphins that lived in a sub-arctic marine environment unlike their modern-day relatives, which inhabit the major rivers of Asia such as the Indus and Ganges.

Like other river dolphins, the South Asian river dolphin is under threat due to habitat loss and the impact of other human activities throughout much of its range.

The skull had been stored at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC before being re-examined. The scientists who wrote the report, Alexandra Boersma and Nicholas Pyenson, have identified the specimen as a new genus and species, which has been named Arktocara yakataga. It lived around the time that whales were evolving into the two groups we know today – baleen whales (mysticetes) such as blue and humpback whales, and toothed whales (odontocetes) such as sperm whale and dolphins.


About George Berry

George is a member of WDC's Communications team and website coordinator.