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Harbour Porpoise
Images coming soon.
- Length
- 5 feet.
- Description
- Head rounded in front, no beak or snout. Fin of the back more triangular than in the dolphins. Colour dark slate or blackish, shading gradually to white on the belly, sides somewhat tinged with pink or yellowish, and a dark band from the lower jaw half way to the flipper. Teeth 26 in each jaw.
- Range
- North Atlantic south to New Jersey; also on coasts of Europe and in the Pacific.
As the bottle-nose (Tursiops tursio) is the commonest of the dolphins on our coast, this is the best known of the round-headed or porpoise group. It is apparently more common on European coasts than with us and, being more northern in its range, is not so familiar as the common bottle-nose to our sea-shore visitors.
The five species which follow are all allied to the harbour porpoise, but have striking peculiarities which have earned for them distinctive popular names.