Commerson's dolphin

Commerson's dolphin is a small, stocky dolphin with a sharp black-and-white pattern, so people call it the panda dolphin, skunk dolphin or piebald dolphin. It grows to only about 1.5 metres, which makes it one of the smallest of all whales and dolphins, and it has a rounded dorsal fin.

The main population lives along the cold coasts of southern South America, including Argentina, the Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. A second, slightly different group lives near the Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean, about 8,500 kilometres away. Nobody knows exactly why the two groups are so far apart. The IUCN lists it as Least Concern.

Two homes, far apart

The South American form has a clearly black head, fin and tail, with a white throat and body. The Kerguelen form is bigger, with softer grey-and-white colours and a white band underneath. It was discovered in the 1950s. In 2004 a single stray dolphin of uncertain origin was seen off South Africa, thousands of kilometres from either home, which shows that these little dolphins can wander.

Name and survey

The dolphin is named after the French naturalist Philibert Commerson, who first described it in 1767 after seeing it in the Strait of Magellan. A 1984 survey estimated about 3,200 individuals in that strait. The total number worldwide is unknown, but the dolphin is accepted as locally common along the shores where it lives. Both groups prefer shallow, coastal water, and in southern Chile and Argentina they are often seen riding the waves made by boats.

On the globe

The model is in the cold sea of southern South America. Look for the black-and-white pattern.