Hourglass dolphin | |
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Hourglass dolphins leaping in the Drake Passage | |
Size compared to an average human | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Infraorder: | Cetacea |
Family: | Delphinidae |
Genus: | Lagenorhynchus |
Species: | L. cruciger
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Binomial name | |
Lagenorhynchus cruciger | |
Hourglass dolphin range |
The hourglass dolphin (Lagenorhynchus cruciger) is a small dolphin in the family Delphinidae that inhabits offshore Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters.[3] It is commonly seen from ships crossing the Drake Passage but has a circumpolar distribution.
The species was identified as a new species by Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard in 1824 from a drawing made in the South Pacific in 1820.[4] It is the only cetacean to have been widely accepted as a species solely on witness accounts.