Inia

Inia
An Amazon River Dolphin at Duisburg Zoo.
Size comparison against an average human
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Eutheria
Order: Cetacea
Suborder: Odontoceti
Superfamily: Platanistoidea
Family: Iniidae
Genus: Inia
d'Orbigny 1834
Species
Inia range

Inia is a genus of river dolphin containing one or possibly two species.

Taxonomy

The genus was described by Alcide d'Orbigny in 1834 when Delphinus geoffrensis, described by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1817, was recognized to be a unique taxon. The most recent 1998 classification[1] listed a single species, Inia geoffrensis, in the genus Inia, with three recognized subspecies. Most of the scientific community accepts this single species classification, as does the IUCN.[2]

Alternate classification

References

  1. ^ Rice, D. W. (1998). Marine mammals of the world: systematics and distribution. Society of Marine Mammalogy Special Publication Number 4. pp. 231. 
  2. ^ Reeves, R.R., Jefferson, T.A., Karczmarski, L., Laidre, K., O’Corry-Crowe, G., Rojas-Bracho, L., Secchi, E.R., Slooten, E., Smith, B.D., Wang, J.Y. & Zhou, K. (2008). Inia geoffrensis. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 06 March 2009.
General references