Tursiops truncatus (Montagu 1821)

[Delphinus] truncatus Montagu 1821, Mem. Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc., 3: 75.

Type Locality: UK, England, Devonshire, "in Duncannon Pool, near Stoke Gabriel, about five miles up the River Dart".

Vernacular Names: Bottlenose Dolphin.

Synonyms: Tursiops gephyreus Lahille 1908 .

Subspecies::

Subspecies Tursiops truncatus subsp. truncatus Montagu 1821

Subspecies Tursiops truncatus subsp. gillii Dall 1873

Subspecies Tursiops truncatus subsp. ponticus Barabash-Nikiforov 1940

Distribution: Worldwide: temperate to tropical waters, including the Black Sea.

Conservation: CITES – Appendix II; IUCN – Data Deficient.

Discussion: See Leatherwood and Reeves (1990). Ross and Cockroft (1990:124) considered aduncus to be synonymous with truncatus . Hall (1981:885-887) considered nesarnack and gillii distinct species, and synonymized truncatus with nesarnack. Opinion 1413 of the International Commision on Zoological Nomenclature (1986) conserved truncatus Montagu, 1821 and suppressed nesarnack Lacépède, 1804. Rice (1998:106) provisionally recognized T. t. truncatus (Bottlenose Dolphin), T. t. ponticus (Black Sea Bottlenose Dolphin) and T. t. gillii (Cowfish). The relationship of Tursiops gephyreus (South American Bottlenose Dolphin), to either T. truncatus or T. aduncus remains uncertain.