The vast
majority of whales
and dolphins live in marine (salt water)
habitat. There are, however, a few species of dolphins that
life in brackish water or freshwater habitat.
Blue
whales
- the largest
animals in the world, live in the open
oceans. As opposed to many other whales that can only be found near the
coasts, blue whales can be found in the middle of the largest oceans
far away from all coasts. There are, however, a few concentrations of
blue whales that can be found not far away from the coasts. There is a
population of 2000 estimated individuals between Alaska and Costa Rica
in eastern Pacific Ocean. In Atlantic ocean, there is a
western population of about 500 whales off Newfoundland and Greenland,
and an easterly population between Iceland and Azores in south. There
is also a population of about 2000 blue whales in southern Atlantic
ocean, and another concentration in northern Indian Ocean.
Beluga
Whales
also live in
marine habitat. As opposed to Blue Whales
which are found in both hemispheres, Beluga whales are only found in
the Northern Hemisphere, and they are known for living in cold, Arctic
and sub-arctic waters. They are found along the coasts of Greenland,
Canada, Alaska and Russia. They like to stay close to the ice edge, but
they sometimes do stay under the ice, breathing in patches of open
water or
air pockets under the ice. Occasional Beluga remains have been found
quite far inland, indicating they may tolerate freshwater and follow
fish like migrating salmon up the river.
Common Dolphins are the oceanic
dolphins belonging the genus Delphinus.
There
are at least two species of them - Short-beakedCommon Dolphin
(Delphinus delphis),
and Long-beaked Common
Dolphin
(Delphinus
capensis). Both live in marine habitat, but close to
coasts. Short-beaked Common dolphin is found along all the coasts in
Europe except Scandinavia, along the eastern and western coasts of
North America; western coast of South America and in pockets
around Japan, New Zealand and Tasmania. Long-beaked Common Dolphin is
found around eastern and western coasts of South America;
south-western coast of North America; southern Japan, around all the
coasts of Madagascar, and in pockets in southern and western Africa and
the Arabian Peninsula.
It is found across all
the oceans and along all the coasts except Canada, Alaska, Greenland,
Iceland, Scandinavia, Russia, the southern tip of South America, and
south-western Africa.
There are actually two species of bottlenose
dolphins: Tursiops
truncatus and Tursiops
aduncus. Both have the same distribution.
Pink Dolphins
Habitat
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There are two species of dolphins that are casually called pink dolphins: the
Amazon River Dolphin (Inia
geoffrensis), which lives in the basin of Amazon River in
South America; and the Chinese White Dolphin (Sousa chinensis)
that lives in the Pearl River delta in Hong Kong, but also in the
waters in South-east Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea and northern
Australia.
Amazon
River Dolphis live entirely in a freshwater habitat,
while Chinese
White Dolphins live in estuarine (brackish water) and marine
(saltwater) habitat. The only real pink
river dolphins, however, is the Amazon River Dolphin.
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