Dall's Porpoise

Fascinating facts about the Dall's Porpoise

• The Dall's porpoise is the biggest of all porpoise species, reaching lengths of up to 2.3 metres and weighing between 130 and 220 kilograms. Males are generally larger than females, with average adult males attaining about 220 cm and females about 210 cm, although individuals in the southern Okhotsk Sea can grow as long as 239 cm. Calves are born at roughly 100 cm and continue to grow rapidly for the first two years before males begin to outpace females in size.
• It is the sole species placed in the genus Phocoenoides, giving it a unique taxonomic standing among porpoises. Within this single species two colour morphs are recognised as subspecies: the dalli type and the truei type, each with distinct flank and belly markings. The truei type occurs only in the western Pacific and shows a white belly patch that extends farther forward than that of the dalli type.
• When Dall's porpoises sprint across the water they generate a distinctive spray known as a "rooster tail". This spray appears as they swim rapidly at the surface, a behaviour that also makes them frequent visitors to boats where they often bow-ride. They are also known to ride the waves created by the heads of larger swimming whales, showing a playful use of surface turbulence.
• Dall's porpoises have been seen playing with the calves of resident killer whales, even swimming alongside them. One individual was recorded travelling with the AB pod of orcas from May to October 1984, suggesting unusual interspecies interaction.
• Before the 1990s driftnet ban, an estimated 8,000 Dall's porpoises were caught in a single year (1989-1990). The United Nations issued a moratorium in the 1990s to halt the driftnet fisheries.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Dall's Porpoise

In the dark, mysterious waters of the North Pacific, the Dall's Porpoise darts and weaves with incredible agility, its sleek, black body undulating as it pursues the schools of fish that sustain it. With a speed and stealth that belies its relatively small size, this porpoise navigates the waves with ease, its triangular dorsal fin slicing through the surface tension with barely a ripple. As it breaks the surface, the Dall's Porpoise exhales a misty plume of breath, a fleeting glimpse of a creature that spends most of its life in the dark, hidden depths.

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