Striped Dolphin

Stenella coeruleoalba

FIELD MARKS:
dolphinlike
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to 2.7m
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two black stripes on sides
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prominent beak usually
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compare with Common Dolphin

Description

Maximum length 2.7m (9 feet). Body shape and size much like the Common Dolphin and Spotted Dolphin - slender, sleek, well defined beak, pointed flippers, and a falcate dorsal fin.

Their color pattern is distinctive, however. The top of the head and back is dark gray to bluish gray, sides are a lighter gray, the belly and throut are white. Belly is often bright pink. Dorsal fin, flippers, and flukes are dark. There are two black stripes on the lower half of each side - one from the eye to anus, the other form the eye to the flipper. The eye-to-flipper stripe is often double. The beak is black, and a black stripe extends from the beak to a black patch around the eye. A light shoulder blaze sweeps up form the underside forward of the dorsal fin. Another blaze often extends from underneath the midriff up and rearward toward the flukes.

Note

Some contend that dolphins with a double stripe between the eye and flipper constitute a separate species.

Habitat

Water temperate and tropical waters off edge of continental shelf; warm fingers of water in northern areas.

Range

Widely distributed in temperate, semitropical, and tropical seas. In the Atlantic, they have been reported from Halifax, Nova Scotia (my home! Yeah!) to Jamaica. In the Pacific, mainly from 20 degrees latitude, around the Berring Sea, southward. Common off Baja California.

Food

They feed at mid-depths on fishes, squids and crustaceans.

Similar Species

Can be confused with the Common Dolphin, but the lateral striping of the Striped Dolphin and the hourglass V-shape to the cape of the Common Dolphin easily separate the two.

Comments

Gregarious, often in heards of several hundred. Will leap and splash when swimming. Will bow ride. Capable of amazing acrobatics - backward cartwheels, tailspins while airborne, and upside-down porpoising. They often associate with Yellowfin Tuna in the eastern Pacific and are thus killed by porpoise seining. On a brighter note, successful efforts are being made to reduce these deaths.

Also known as Meyen's Dolphin, Blue-white Dolphin, Gray's Dolphin, Striped Porpoise, Streaker Porpoise, Euphrosyne Dolphin, and Whitebelly.

Credits

Much of the information found here has been adapted from the following sources:

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