Description
Fraser's dolphins are about 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) long and 20 kg weight at birth, growing to 2.75 metres (9 ft 0 in) and 200 kg at adulthood. They have a stocky build, a small fin in relation to the size of the body, conspicuously small flippers. The dorsal fin and beak are also insubstantial. The upper side is a gray-blue to gray-brown. A dirty cream colored line runs along the flanks from the beak, above the eye, to the anus. There is a dark stripe under this line. The belly and throat are usually white, sometimes tinged pink. The lack of a prominent beak is a distinguishing characteristic of the dolphin. From a distance however it may be confused with the Striped Dolphin which has a similar coloration and is found in the same regions.
Fraser's dolphins swim quickly in large tightly packed groups of about 100 to 1000 in number. Often porpoising, the group chop up the water tremendously. The sight of seeing a large group fleeing from a fishing vessels has been reported as "very dramatic".
It is also marked by having the smallest genitalia of any open sea dolphin.
The species feeds on pelagic fish, squid and shrimp found some distance below the surface of the water (200 metres (660 ft) to 500 metres (1,600 ft)). Virtually no sunlight penetrates this depth, so feeding is carried out using echolocation alone.
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