• Question: Please could you tell me the biological name for a dolphin.

    Asked by biokitten to Jon on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      It depends on the species of dolphin – there are 33 species of dolphin that live in the sea.

      But probably the most “common” dolphin is the bottlenose dolphin, and its scientific name is Tursiops truncatus.

      Geneticists have recently found that what we thought was one species of bottlenose dolphin worldwide is actually two populations of separate species – so there is now an “Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin” as well, which is called Tursiops aduncus.

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