Nature Atlas

How Nature Works
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Species

Pantropical spotted dolphin

Mammals

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

The pantropical spotted dolphin (Stenella attenuata) is a slender oceanic dolphin found throughout the world's tropical and temperate oceans. Adults measure about 2.5 meters in length and weigh 110 to 140 kilograms, with a long thin beak, a thin falcate dorsal fin, a dark gray back and whitish chin and belly, and light spots that increase in number and size with age, though young animals are unspotted and can resemble bottlenose dolphins. It ranges between about 40 degrees north and 40 degrees south, generally favoring shallow warm water above 25 degrees Celsius, and in the eastern Pacific it is often found associating with, though not feeding on, schools of yellowfin tuna. It feeds on small fish, squid and crustaceans near the surface, and though it remains the second most abundant cetacean after the bottlenose dolphin, with a global population above three million, that population has fallen from an estimated seven million or more since the 1950s.

Sources
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.