Inia

Inia
An Amazon river dolphin at the Duisburg Zoo.
Size compared to an average human
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Family: Iniidae
Genus: Inia
d'Orbigny, 1834
Species
  • See text
Inia spp. ranges. I. araguaiaensis, I. geoffrensis and I. boliviensis are blue, light green and purple, respectively.

Inia is a genus of river dolphins from South America. It contains one to three species.

Taxonomy

Inia spp. skull

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. A 1998 classification[1] listed a single species, Inia geoffrensis, in the genus Inia, with three recognized subspecies. Most of the scientific community accepted this single species classification, as did the IUCN.[2] In 2012 the Society for Marine Mammalogy[3] started considering the Bolivian (Inia geoffrensis boliviensis) subspecies as a full species, Inia boliviensis. In 2014, the population in the Araguaia-Tocantins basin was recognized to be an additional species, Inia araguaiaensis.[4]

Alternate classification[3]

References

  1. ↑ Rice, D. W. (1998). Marine mammals of the world: systematics and distribution. Society of Marine Mammalogy Special Publication Number 4. p. 231.
  2. ↑ R.R. Reeves; T.A. Jefferson; L. Karczmarski; K. Laidre; G. O'Corry-Crowe; L. Rojas-Bracho; E.R. Secchi; E. Slooten; B.D. Smith; J.Y. Wang; K. Zhou (2011). "Inia geoffrensis". IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
  3. 1 2 "" Committee on Taxonomy. 2012. List of marine mammal species and subspecies. Society for Marine Mammalogy, www.marinemammalscience.org, consulted on May 6, 2012.
  4. 1 2 Hrbek, Tomas; Da Silva, Vera Maria Ferreira; Dutra, Nicole; Gravena, Waleska; Martin, Anthony R.; Farias, Izeni Pires (2014-01-22). Turvey, Samuel T., ed. "A New Species of River Dolphin from Brazil or: How Little Do We Know Our Biodiversity". PLOS ONE. 9: e83623. PMC 3898917 Freely accessible. PMID 24465386. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0083623.
General references
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