Inia

Inia is a genus of river dolphins from South America. It contains one to three species.

This article is about the genus of dolphin. For the Maldivian airport, see Ibrahim Nasir International Airport.

Inia
An Amazon river dolphin at the Duisburg Zoo.
Size compared to an average human
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Family: Iniidae
Genus: Inia
d'Orbigny, 1834
Species
  • See text
Inia spp. ranges. I. araguaiaensis, I. geoffrensis and I. boliviensis are blue, light green and purple, respectively.

Taxonomy
Inia spp. skull

The genus was described by Alcide d'Orbigny in 1834 when Delphinus geoffrensis, described by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1817, was recognized to be a unique taxon. A 1998 classification listed a single species, Inia geoffrensis, in the genus Inia, with three recognized subspecies.[1] Most of the scientific community accepted this single species classification, as does the IUCN.[2] As of 2016 the Committee on Taxonomy of the Society for Marine Mammalogy considers the genus Inia to contain one species with only two subspecies: the Bolivian (I. g. boliviensis) and the Amazon (I. g. geoffrensis) subspecies.[3] In 2014, the population in the Araguaia-Tocantins basin was proposed to define an additional species, Inia araguaiaensis,[4] but this remains debated.

IUCN Classification

Genus Inia

Society For Marine Mammalogy Classification

References
  1. Rice, D. W. (1998). Marine mammals of the world: systematics and distribution. Society of Marine Mammalogy Special Publication Number 4. p. 231.
  2. R.R. Reeves; T.A. Jefferson; L. Karczmarski; K. Laidre; G. O'Corry-Crowe; L. Rojas-Bracho; E.R. Secchi; E. Slooten; B.D. Smith; J.Y. Wang; K. Zhou (2011). "Inia geoffrensis". IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
  3. "List of Marine Mammal Species and Subspecies - Society for Marine Mammalogy". www.marinemammalscience.org. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  4. Hrbek, Tomas; Da Silva, Vera Maria Ferreira; Dutra, Nicole; Gravena, Waleska; Martin, Anthony R.; Farias, Izeni Pires (2014-01-22). Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). "A New Species of River Dolphin from Brazil or: How Little Do We Know Our Biodiversity". PLOS ONE. 9: e83623. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0083623. PMC 3898917. PMID 24465386.
General references
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