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The Chinese River Dolphin
Topic Started: Dec 16 2006, 11:33 PM (30 Views)
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The Chinese River Dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) was a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze River in China.

Nicknamed "Goddess of the Yangtze" (????) in China, it was declared "functionally extinct" after an expedition in late 2006 failed to find any in the river.

Early history
Fossil records indicate that the dolphins may have migrated from the Pacific Ocean to the Yangtze River 20 million years ago.

It was one of four species of dolphins known to have made fresh water their exclusive habitat. The other three species have survived in the Ganges and Indus rivers on the Indian subcontinent and the Amazon in South America.

It is estimated that there were 5,000 Chinese River Dolphins when they were described in the Han Dynasty dictionary Erya.

Characteristics
When escaping from danger, the baiji could reach 60 km/h, but usually stayed within 10 to 15 km/h. Its vision and hearing abilities had severely degenerated through the millennia, and it relied mainly on sonar for navigation.

Its brain was almost as big as the gorilla's or chimpanzee's, and some scientists believe it was more intelligent than the primates.

Causes of decline
The species declined over decades due to a variety of causes, including dam-building, environmental degradation, hunting by humans, and ship collisions.
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