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Long-beaked Common Dolphins
The Long-beaked Common Dolphins - Delphinus capensis can reached up to 2.5m, and are less robust in appearance than bottlenose dolphins. The body is dark-brown to black with characteristic, orange-brown, ‘figure of eight’ markings on the sides and a creamy-white underbelly. The head slopes gently forward to a long narrow beak and the dorsal fin is prominent, slightly hooked and triangular. A dark stripe extends up from the pectoral fins to the lower jaw and another joins the back of the beak to around the eye.
We saw them during our week on the East Coast of South Africa during Sardine Run season, there were hundreds if not thousands of them, working to get the Sardines into tight balls.
The long-beaked common dolphin is a species of common dolphin. It has a more restricted range than the short-beaked common dolphin . It has a disjointed range in coastal areas in tropical and warmer temperate oceans. The range includes parts of western and southern Africa, much of western South America, central California to central Mexico, coastal Peru, areas around Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and possibly near Oman. Vagrants have been recorded as far north as Vancouver Island. They live in shallow,.. more
