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River dolphins are rather small, ranging in size from the 5-foot (1.5 m) long South Asian river dolphin to the 8-foot (2.4 m) and 220-pound (100 kg) Amazon river dolphin. They all have female-biased sexual dimorphism apart from Amazon river dolphin, with the females being larger than the males.
The Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis), also known as the boto, bufeo or pink river dolphin, is a species of toothed whale endemic to South America and is classified in the family Iniidae. Three subspecies are currently recognized: I. g. geoffrensis (Amazon river dolphin), I. g. boliviensis ( Bolivian river dolphin ) and I. g. humboldtiana ...
Articles relating to the river dolphins, a polyphyletic group of fully aquatic mammals that reside exclusively in freshwater or brackish water. They are an informal grouping of dolphins, which itself is a paraphyletic group within the infraorder Cetacea. Extant river dolphins are placed in two superfamilies, Platanistoidea and Inioidea.
Bolivian river dolphins were discovered by the Western world in 1832 by French researcher Alcide d'Orbigny. [2] The Bolivian river dolphin was briefly thought to be a subspecies (as I. geoffrensis boliviensis) of the Amazonian river dolphin, Inia geoffrensis, but differences in body structure and the isolation of the Bolivian river dolphin led to it being classified as its own species in 2012. [3]
South Asian river dolphins are toothed whales in the genus Platanista, which inhabit the waterways of the Indian subcontinent.They were historically considered to be one species (P. gangetica) with the Ganges river dolphin and the Indus river dolphin being subspecies (P. g. gangetica and P. g. minor respectively).
The Indus river dolphin was described in 1853 by Richard Owen under the name Platanista gangetica, var. minor, based on a dolphin skull, which was smaller than skulls of the Ganges river dolphin. [3] The Indus and Ganges river dolphins were initially classified as a single species, Platanista gangetica. In the 1970s, they were considered to be ...
The Amazon river dolphin, baiji, and La Plata dolphin were once thought to belong to Platanistidae (e.g. Simpson, 1945), but cladistic and DNA studies beginning in the 1990s showed that the former three taxa are more closely related to Delphinoidea than to the South Asian river dolphin.
Articles relating to the Platanistidae, a family of river dolphins containing the extant Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin (both in the genus Platanista) but also extinct relatives from freshwater and marine deposits in the Neogene.