by: Nicole Le Boeuf
The striped dolphin is named for bold, black stripes that run along the sides of its body from encircling the eyes to the anus. The word stenella comes from the Greek word for "narrow" which apparently refers to the animal's slender rostrum. Coeruleoalba is a combination of two Latin words which mean "sky blue" and "white".
Aside from its distinctive striping pattern, this dolphin has a light gray blaze running from the flanks to under the dorsal fin as well as a dark gray back. It also has a white belly originating from the eye markings.
The striped dolphin reaches a length of about 2.6 m with an adult weight of around 150 kg. Calves are born at approximately one meter in length. Although petite among dolphins, this species is slightly more robust than its closest relatives, the spinner and the pan-tropical spotted dolphins. This dolphin species also shows slight sexual dimorphism of difference in size with the males being a bit larger than the females.
The striped dolphin is a cosmopolitan warm water species and can be found on the entire coastline of Africa. They are generally a pelagic or open ocean species, but can be found near the shore where deep waters approach the coast. One discrete stock has been identified for South African waters.
This dolphin is a fast swimmer, and it tends to be more easily alarmed than other dolphins. This along with the coloration pattern may have lead to the nickname given to them by fisherman, "streakers". They are quite gregarious traveling in groups of 100's and even 1000's. It is considered the most common cetacean in the Mediterranean Sea. Thousands of striped dolphins died in the early 1980's from the outbreak of a virus.
Although there is some direct capture in the Northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea, striped dolphins are captured in larger numbers in the Indian Ocean and off of Sri Lanka. In other parts of the world, striped dolphins are involved in incidental captures in the fisheries of the Eastern Tropical Pacific and in drive fisheries in Japan.
Insufficiently known.
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Jefferson, T.A. Leatherwood, S. and M.A. Webber. 1994. FAO Species Identification Guide, Marine Mammals of the World. FAO of the United Nations, Rome.
Jefferson, T.A., Curry, B.E., Leatherwood, S. and J.A. Powell. 1997. Dolphins and porpoises of West Africa: A review of records (Cetacea: Delphinidae, Phocoenidae). Mammalia, v61 i1 pp 87-108 (22).
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Miyazaki, N. 1977. School structure of Stenella coeruleoalba. Rept. Int. Whaling Commission No. 27, Paper L, 18: 498-499.
Di Meglio N. Romero Alvarez R. Collet A. Growth comparison in striped dolphins, Stenella coeruleoalba, from the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France. Aquatic Mammals 22(1). 1996. 11-19.
Calzada N. Aguilar A. Sorensen T B. Lockyer C. Reproductive biology of female striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) from the western Mediterranean. Journal of Zoology (London) 240(3). 1996. 581-591.
Marine Mammal Stranding Center
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