Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Family: Delphinidae
Genus: Stenella
Species: S. coeruleoalba
Binomial name: Stenella coeruleoalba
Synonyms: Stenella euphrosyne, Stenella styx
Common names: Striped dolphin, Blue-white dolphin, Euphrosyne Dolphin
The Striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) is a dolphin found in temperate and tropical waters of all the world's oceans. They are a very social species often travelling in large pods of >100 or more and pods can easily number in the thousands.
The southernmost record is of a stranded striped dolphin was one that was found washed-up on Warrington Beach near Dunedin in September 2017. There have been several stranding of this species around the North Island in the last 10 years (2017)
The Striped dolphin can grow to lengths of around 2.5 m and can weigh over 150 kg. They have a large dorsal fin and a prominent beak. Their colouring is very distinctive, the underside is blue, white, or pink. One or two black bands circle the eyes, and then run across the back, to the flipper. These bands widen to the width of the flipper which is the same size. Two further black stripes run from behind the ear — one is short and ends just above the flipper. The other is longer and thickens along the flanks until it curves down under the belly just prior to the tailstock. Above these stripes, the dolphin's flanks are coloured light blue or grey. All appendages are black, as well. There are one or two black stripes that run from the eyes to the back and flippers and two more stripes that start from the back of the ears. One stripe runs to the flipper and the other dips down to the belly. All of their appendages are black.
The main diet of striped dolphins consists of fish, squid, krill, cephalopods, crustaceans and octopus.
This species is hunted for food in several places around the world and sometimes it is bait in fisheries.
This male Striped dolphin found washed-up on Warrington Beach near Dunedin in September 2017.
A graphic showing the size of a Striped dolphin compared with a human.
Thanks to Wikipedia for text and information: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
