Fraser's Dolphin - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

In 1895, Charles E. Hose found a skull on a beach in Sarawak, Borneo. He donated it to the British Museum. The skull remained unstudied until 1956 when Francis Fraser examined it and concluded that it was similar to species in both the Lagenorhynchus and Delphinus genera but not the same as either. A new genus was created by simply merging these two names together. The specific name is given in Hose's honour.

It wasn't until 1971 that the whole body of a Fraser's Dolphin, as it was by then becoming known, was discovered. At that time washed-up specimens were found on Cocos Island in the eastern Pacific, in South Australia and in South Africa.