At Munamban harbour in Kerala, India today we saw at least 10 Indian
Ocean humpback dolphins. These wonderful animals are closely related to the
Australian humpback dolphins that I saw in 2018 and are just magical and
enigmatic. They are pale grey in colour with a white / pinkish tip to the dorsal fin and
instantly identifiable. Or so it would seem....
There is considerable uncertainty surrounding humpback dolphins in the Indian
Ocean. Animals on the west coast of India (including Munamban) are thought to
be Indian Ocean humpbacks, whilst those on the east coast are thought to be a
different species, Indo-Pacific humback dolphins. However
there is also a sub-species of Indian Ocean humpbacks, ssp.
lentiginosa, which occurs on the east coast in the Bay of Bengal, which
may in fact be a third species (Carwardine 2020).
So based on location it seems pretty clear, these must be Indian Ocean humpbacks? Well possibly... there are a
few problems though. In the field it was immediately clear that there were two
different colour types present the first was pale grey as in the animal at the
top of the post, but the others were dark grey almost brown in colour, as is
the case with animal below.
