Posts Tagged ‘river dolphins’
Meet the legendary pink river dolphins
Botos don’t look or live like other dolphins. Flamingo-pink all over with super-skinny snouts and chubby cheeks, they certainly stand out in a crowd. And they never set a flipper in the ocean – home is the fresh, flowing waters of three mighty South American river basins: the Amazon, Orinoco and Tocantins-Araguaia. The botos’ magnificent realm…
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River dolphins observed playing with anaconda
Researchers in Bolivia recorded an unusual interaction between local rivers dolphins and an anaconda snake last year in the Tijamuchi river. The two species would not normally interact but on this occasion a group of dolphins, some of which appeared to be juveniles, were seen carrying the snake through the water. At times the dolphins…
Read MoreLatest endangered species list confirms all freshwater dolphins face battle to avoid extinction
A dolphin found in the Amazon river, the tucuxi, has been classed as endangered on the latest Red List issued by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation for Nature) – the body that assesses the survival prospects of plants, animals and fungi. This latest classification for the tucuxi now means that all the world’s…
Read MoreWorking with Amazon communities to protect pink river dolphins
Whale and Dolphin Conservation is a founding supporter of the Natutama Foundation. Natutama works in the Colombian Amazon developing important and often ground-breaking conservation and education projects with communities to protect dolphins, manatees and other wildlife. Natutama means ‘everything under the water’ in the Amazon Indian Ticuna language. The Natutama Foundation and the Amazon indigenous communities…
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Franciscana
See all species The franciscana is a small dolphin with a very long, slender beak – in fact they hold the record for the longest beak in proportion to body size, of any dolphin. The franciscana’s beak is 15 percent of the total body length. Franciscanas live only in the shallow, coastal waters of the southwestern Atlantic of…
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South Asian river dolphin
See all species Although they now live in separate Asian river systems, the Ganges and Indus River dolphins look identical because they share a common ancestor. They are currently categorised as subspecies and scientists are considering the evidence that they have evolved into two species. Sadly, both are endangered; there are only one to two…
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