Talk:Ganges and Indus River Dolphin

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The new range map is very good. Thanks for doing it. The improvement it makes to this article far outweighs the slight decrease in consistency across other articles... of course if you fancy upgrading any of them ... feel free to check out the list at cetacea... :-) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:10, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Glad to see you like it. But sorry, I won't update any of the other cetacea maps any time soon—I'm busy with sailing ships and eumeces. Lupo 10:47, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Worth a try :-). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:48, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Needs verifying

From the article:

Intesting Fact:
In order to avoid floating debris in the River, Pilleri found that Dolphins living in the river indus only sleep for a few seconds at a time in order to protect themselves.

This is uncited, and in an odd place in the article. Who is Pilleri, and can we have a verifiable cite for this, please? -- The Anome 08:42, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

There are two species of blind river dolphins in south Asia - the Indus (Platanista minor), and Ganges (Platanista gangetica) River dolphins. [They were once thought to be the same species.] They do not have a crystalline eye lens, which makes them effectively blind. But the lack of vision is compensated by highly developed sound imaging skills, also termed ‘echolocation’ – a sophisticated sonar system that is a navigation aid in the muddy and silted rivers. Their blindness " …is one of the reasons why these dolphins swim on one side underwater, with one flipper trailing in the muddy riverbed. The physical touch gives the dolphins important information about their surroundings and helps them find food." Although they prefer to live in deeper waters , the Indus and the Ganges dolphins can also survive in waters only three feet deep.

The Indus river dolphin is found in the Indus and Chenab rivers of Pakistan, while the Ganges river dolphin is found in the Ganges, Meghna, Brahmaputra, and Karnaphuli rivers that flow through India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Both varieties are endangered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.41.219 (talk) 13:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] not Gangeticus?

Why is it P. gangetica ? Isn't platanista masculine? —Muke Tever talk (la.wiktionary) 21:29, 24 October 2005 (UTC) Ganges river dolphins are almost identical to Indus river dolphins but for some minor differences of anatomy.

[edit] Pitch

I understand this species has the highest-pitched sound of all mammals (and animals?) at 380 kHz. A quote from This pages for instance says, reference included, "Very efficient ultrasound system. Echolocation sounds of up to 380 kHz. (Shrestha, 1995)" (scroll down to Family Platanistidae). This is considerably more than any bat or true dolphin (family Delphinidae). Earlier I had seen the same figure in Lyall Watson's Whales of the World: A Field Guide to the Cetaceans (1981). --Anshelm '77 12:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seperate articles!

Given that Ganges and Indus River Dolphins are two different sub-species, and are found in completely different geographic locations, I don't see why we shouldn't have seperate articles for both. Any suggestions? --IslesCapeTalk 16:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, they should be different articles Mik357 (talk) 18:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I say go for it. It will add to the number of wikipedia articles, and the two deserve seperate articles anyway. Elasmosaurus (talk) 18:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)