Friday, July 26, 2019

White-Beaked Dolphin

The white-beaked dolphin is dark gray on the upper body and flanks with light gray patches, including a saddle behind the dorsal fin. The underside is a lighter gray, almost white. The flippers, flukes (each half of the tail is called a fluke) and dorsal fin are a darker gray than the rest of the body. The name-sake beak, which is short, is usually white, but may be ashy-gray in older dolphins. 
The dorsal finds of two sets of two.
A portion of the white beak is visible on the front dolphin. 
The head and beak are visible.
A different angle. 
They are found in the cold sub-arctic waters of the North Atlantic, a band stretching from Cape Code on the south and the mouth of the St. Lawrence River on the north, on the west end, to northern France on the south and Svalbard on the north, on the east end. Within the band, there are four places they are most common, and one of those four places is around Iceland. 
Distribution map from Wikipedia. The blue is where the white-beaked dolphin is found. 
We took a whale-watching tour out of Reykjavik Harbor which was kind of disappointing, for lack of sightings, but the most predominant animal we saw was the white-beaked dolphin.  
The white beak of the front dolphin is just emerging from the water, while more of the back dolphin is exposed. 
I like the reflection of the dorsal fin in the water.

1 comment:

  1. I was kind of hoping they would leap out of the water and pirouette a few times. No such luck.

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