Araguay dolphin ( Latin Inia araguaiaensis ) is a South American species of river dolphins , discovered in 2014 in Brazil . It lives in the Araguaya river basin. The species separated from its ancestor common with the Amazon dolphin about 2 million years ago, when Araguaya stopped communicating with the Amazon [1] .
| Araguay dolphin | ||||||||||||||||||||
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 Skull and lower jaw of the holotype of the species | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Inia araguaiaensis Hrbek, Farias, Dutra & da Silva, 2014 |
Previously, these dolphins were assigned to the same species as Amazonian. The independence of the new species was established by the results of a study of its nuclear and mitochondrial DNA , as well as by morphological characteristics. However, the morphological differences between the Araguay dolphin and its closest relative, the Amazonian one, are hardly noticeable [1] . From Bolivian (which itself is sometimes considered a subspecies of the Amazonian), it differs more strongly. The Araguay dolphin has fewer teeth ( 24–28 in half of each jaw versus 25–29 in the Amazonian and 31–35 in the Bolivian) and there are some differences in the size of the skull [1] .
Estimates of the numbers of these dolphins range from 600 to 1500 individuals [1] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Hrbek T., Da Silva VMF, Dutra, N., Gravena W., Martin, AR, Farias IP A New Species of River Dolphin from Brazil or: How Little Do We Know Our Biodiversity // PLOS ONE. - 2014 .-- Vol. 9, No. 1 . - P. e83623. - DOI : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0083623 .