Whereas many dolphins and whales live in very deep seas, Chinese white dolphins prefer shallow coastal waters, and rarely travel offshore. Sousa chinensis can normally be found in geographically isolated populations from South Africa to Australia, and up the Chinese coast to the Yangtze River. Even the Mississippi of North America is once said to have had a dolphin before pollution from the Industrial age killed it off.

The color of the dolphin is variable and may be pink, white, grey or spotted with a light pink belly. The populations in Southeast Asia are born almost black, then quickly change to light grey, then slowly become white or pink as the grey coloration recedes. Their pectoral fins are small and rounded and the flukes are rounded and triangular. Animals from the Indian Ocean have a hump on the back below the triangular dorsal fin but those from the Pacific have an indistinct or absent hump. The beak is slender, long and low. Size ranges from 70cm at birth to 3m at maturity and calves are born throughout the year with a peak in the summer months. In South African populations, females reach sexual maturity at around 10, and they have one baby every three years at most. Their behaviors depend very much on the tides and occur mostly during the day. Their peak feeding time starts when the tide is rising, and their times of greatest social activity starts at dawn and at dusk. Young males may wander quite far from the group, but the population as a whole is unlikely to move to another location, no matter how degraded the environment becomes.

Not a lot is known about the dolphin's coloring because of their remoteness and rarity. It has been speculated they are pink for the same reason as pink flamingos. Like the dolphin, these marshland birds are not born pink but turn this color as they get older. The flamingos are colored by a red pigment found in the muscle tissue of the crabs and shellfish they eat. The colored molecule is not digested, yet is still absorbed in the birds gizzard and accumulates in the shafts of the birds' growing feathers. Although this pigment is not visible in the raw meat of crustatia, it is the same pigment which causes a prawn to turn pink when cooked. Often flamingos in captivity are fed shellfish rich in this pigment in order to brighten their colorful appearance and highten their appeal. Because the Chinese white dolphin also feeds on these animals in the marsh lands and flooded planes of the Amazon basin it is thought the same pigment accumulates in its skin as it gets older.

However, another plausible theory exists as to why this dolphin develops the coloring. Like most dolphins, Boutus are born a dark gray. Yet they loose this color as they become older. It is thought that the pink coloring is simply a flush of blood moving through the dolphins skin, much the same way a human blushes or pinkens during exercise. The dolphin lives exclusively in warm tropical waters and does not need this thick layer of white fat common to other ocean dolphins. In contrast the Beluga whale of the St. Lawrence River in northern Canada, remains white because of the thick layer of blubber needed for insulation.

The construction of the Hong Kong airport has stripped off the natural habitat of the Chinese white dolphins. Recent counts have detected only about 85 animals, down from a pre-project population of about 400. The dolphins have suffered from the loss of their feeding grounds, increased pollution from reclamation and dredging, excessive boat traffic, and blasting operations. The Hong Kong World-Wide Fund for Nature warned that blasting at Chek Lap Kok could cause a "serious, if not total decline, in the population". In April 1995, Hong Kong designated a marine sanctuary for the remaining dolphins.