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Sousa plumbea

Mammalia - Cetacea - Delphinidae

Taxonomy
Delphinus plumbeus was named by Flower (1884). It is extant. Its type locality is Malabar, which is in a Holocene coastal horizon in India.

It was recombined as Sotalia plumbeus by Flower (1883), Trouessart (1898) and Trouessart (1904); it was recombined as Steno plumbeus by Blanford (1891); it was recombined as Sotalia plumbea by Scheffer and Rice (1963) and Hershkovitz (1966); it was synonymized subjectively with Sousa chinensis by Jefferson and Karczmarski (2001) and Mead and Brownell (2005); it was recombined as Sousa plumbea by Fraser and Purves (1960), Jefferson and Van Waerebeek (2004), Jefferson and Rosenbaum (2014) and Jefferson (2021).

Synonyms
Synonymy list
YearName and author
1829Delphinus plumbeus Cuvier p. 288
1866Steno lentiginosus Gray p. 213
1866Delphinus (Steno) lentiginosus Owen p. 20 figs. Pl. 5, Fig. 2, 3
1868Steno lentiginosus Gray p. 5
1883Sotalia lentiginosus Flower p. 489
1883Sotalia plumbeus Flower p. 489
1884Delphinus plumbeus Flower p. 489
1891Steno plumbeus Blanford p. 583
1898Sotalia lentiginosus Trouessart p. 1026
1898Sotalia plumbeus Trouessart p. 1026
1903Sotalia fergusoni Lydekker p. 411
1904Sotalia lentiginosus Trouessart p. 763
1904Sotalia plumbeus Trouessart p. 763
1936Stenopontistes zambezicus Miranda-Ribeiro p. 20 figs. Plates 1-2
1936Stenopontisties zambezicus Mirando Ribeiro p. 20 figs. Plates 1-2
1960Sousa plumbea Fraser and Purves p. 60
1963Sotalia plumbea Scheffer and Rice p. 7
1966Sotalia lentiginosa Hershkovitz p. 23
1966Sotalia plumbea Hershkovitz p. 24
2004Sousa plumbea Jefferson and Van Waerebeek p. 16
2014Sousa plumbea Jefferson and Rosenbaum
2021Sousa plumbea Jefferson p. 26

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RankNameAuthor
kingdomAnimalia()
Bilateria
EubilateriaAx 1987
Life
Deuterostomia
phylumChordataHaeckel 1874
subphylumVertebrata
superclassGnathostomata
Osteichthyes()
subclassSarcopterygii()
subclassDipnotetrapodomorpha(Nelson 2006)
subclassTetrapodomorpha()
Tetrapoda
Reptiliomorpha
Anthracosauria
subclassAmphibiosauriaKuhn 1967
Cotylosauria()
Amniota
subclassSynapsida
Therapsida()
infraorderCynodontia()
Mammaliamorpha
Mammaliaformes
classMammalia
Theriamorpha(Rowe 1993)
RankNameAuthor
Theriiformes()
Trechnotheria
Cladotheria
Zatheria
subclassTribosphenida()
subclassTheria
Eutheria()
Placentalia
Boreoeutheria
Laurasiatheria
Scrotifera
Euungulata
Artiodactylamorpha
Artiodactyla()
Whippomorpha
orderCetacea
Pelagiceti
Neoceti
suborderOdontoceti
infraorderDelphinida
superfamilyDelphinoidea
familyDelphinidae
subfamilyDelphininae
genusSousaGray 1866
speciesplumbea(Flower 1884)

If no rank is listed, the taxon is considered an unranked clade in modern classifications. Ranks may be repeated or presented in the wrong order because authors working on different parts of the classification may disagree about how to rank taxa.

Sousa plumbea Flower 1884
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Invalid names: Delphinus (Steno) lentiginosus Owen 1866 [synonym], Sotalia fergusoni Lydekker 1903 [synonym], Stenopontistes zambezicus Mirando Ribeiro 1936 [synonym]
Diagnosis
ReferenceDiagnosis
T. A. Jefferson and H. C. Rosenbaum 2014This is the largest species of humpback dolphin, reaching reliably reported maximum total lengths of 279 cm (Cockcroft 1989; Fig. 5). Specimens of S. plumbea have a prominent dorsal hump in adult-size age classes, and the hump is even visible (though less pronounced) in young animals (Fig. 10). The hump ranges in length from 23% to 38% of body length (Ross 1984, Best 2007), and is most exaggerated in adult males (Cockcroft 1989). In general, the dorsal fin is small and the tip is more pointed and falcate than it is in S. teuszii (Fig. 10). There are 49–52 total vertebrae, and the typical vertebral formula is C7, Th11–12, Lu9–13, Ca18–23. The rostum is relatively long (up to 377 mm). The length/breadth ratio of the cranium is 2.2–2.8. Tooth counts are relatively high (33–39 vs. as low as 27 for the other species). Colora- tion is a uniform brownish-gray, with a lighter belly and only slight if any spotting. There are no shared mtDNA haplotypes with other species, and two diagnostic mtDNA characters that distinguish Sousa plumbea from other Sousa species. Addition- ally, nuDNA characters diagnose S. teuszii + S. plumbea from all other Sousa (Table 2).