Description
Risso's have a relatively large anterior body and dorsal fin, while the posterior tapers to a relatively narrow tail. The bulbous head has a vertical crease in front.
Infants are dorsally gray to brown and ventrally cream-colored, with a white anchor-shaped area between the pectorals and around the mouth. In older calves, the non-white areas darken to nearly black, and then lighten (except for the always dark dorsal fin.) Linear scars mostly from social interaction eventually cover the bulk of the body. Older individuals appear mostly white. Most individuals have 2–7 pairs of teeth, all in the lower jaw.
Length is typically 10 feet (3.0 m) although specimens may reach 14.1 feet (4.3 m). Like most dolphins, males are typically slightly larger than females. This species weighs 300–500 kilograms (660–1,100 lb) making it the largest species called "dolphin".
Read more about this topic: Risso's Dolphin
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)