Species: Stenella coeruleoalba
Striped Dolphin
Species
Show on Lists
Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
Classification
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Craniata
Class
Mammalia
Order
Cetacea
Family
Delphinidae
Genus
Stenella
NatureServe
Classification
Other Global Common Names
Estenela Listada - dauphin bleu
Informal Taxonomy
Animals, Vertebrates - Mammals - Whales and Dolphins
Formal Taxonomy
Animalia - Craniata - Mammalia - Cetacea - Delphinidae - Stenella - Two stocks may be present in the eastern tropical Pacific, with a distributional break between about 10 and 17 degrees north latitude (see Baird et al. 1993).
Ecology and Life History
Habitat Type Description
Marine
Migration
false - true - true - In the western Pacific, makes seasonal migrations between pelagic and coastal areas; summers in pelagic waters, winters apparently in East China Sea (Leatherwood and Reeves 1983).
Non-migrant
false
Locally Migrant
true
Food Comments
Diet mainly various mesopelagic fishes, as well as shrimp and squid (Leatherwood and Reeves 1983). Feeding depth may extend below 200 m (see IUCN 1991).
Reproduction Comments
In the western Pacific, mating peaks in winter, spring, and possibly late summer; gestation lasts about 1 year; adult females produce single calf every 3 years; weaning completed at about 1.5 years; sexual maturity in 5-9 years, though newly mature males may not mate.
Ecology Comments
Gregarious; commonly in groups of a few hundred, sometimes in herds of several thousand; group size in the Atlantic apparently tends to be smaller than that in the Pacific (IUCN 1991); groups are segregated by age class (Leatherwood and Reeves 1983, IUCN 1991).
Length
270
Conservation Status
NatureServe Global Status Rank
G5
Global Status Last Reviewed
1996-11-15
Global Status Last Changed
1996-11-15
Distribution
Conservation Status Map
<img src="http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/GetMapGif?CA.BC=__&US.AK=__&US.CA=SNR&US.DE=__&US.FL=SNR&US.MD=__&US.MA=S2&US.NY=__&US.NC=__&US.OR=__&US.SC=SNR" alt="Conservation Status Map" style="width: 475px; height: auto;" />
Global Range
Tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate oceans. Reportedly the most common cetacean in Mediterranean Sea. Proposed discrete stocks: one off South Africa, one or two in the eastern tropical Pacific, and another in the western North Pacific (see IUCN 1991). Widely distributed and relatively common.