Pink Amazon River Dolphin Facts!!!

There are five species of dolphins that make their homes in rivers, being the most popular of them the Pink Dolphins also known as Boto, Boutu or Amazon River dolphins as it inhabits the Amazon River.

The scientific name of the Pink Dolphins from the Amazon is Inia Geoffrensis and they belong to the genus Inea, part of the family Platanistoidea, which is conformed by the five species of river dolphins.

Pink dolphins are not the same dolphins that you would see in the ocean; they have special adaptations to their habitat. In fact, river dolphins are only distantly related to sea dolphins.

They belong taxonomically speaking to different families. The oceanic dolphins belong to the family delphinidae while river dolphins belong to the family Platanistoidea as we said above.

Among the five species of river dolphins, Amazon pink dolphins are considered the most intelligent of them, with a brain capacity 40% larger than that of humans.

Pink dolphins inhabit the Amazon River, but they can also be found in the Orinoco basins and the upper Madeira River as well. While they are mostly pink, these dolphins have various colored skins, which can be light gray, pink, or brown.

The Amazon River pink dolphins conform the largest population of river dolphins in existence as the other four species are functionally extinct or close to extinction.

The river dolphins are among the most endangered species of all the world’s cetaceans. Pink dolphins have been listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a “vulnerable species-threatened” and recently was moved to “endangered species-threatened”

These friendly and social creatures have been living for centuries in the Amazon and its tributaries, but the accelerated destruction of the Amazon basin have put them in a every time more dangerous situation.

The raise in contaminant levels of mercury have caused and increased number of deaths among pink dolphins, especially near gold mines where mercury is used as part of the gold mining process.

The increase of traffic in the Amazon River, also threatens these creatures as they are curious by nature and they sometime approach to vessels where they are easily hurt by the sharp propellers.

Additionally, the noise produced by engines and motors and the sound pollution caused by them, has been considered to produce a disorienting phenomenon in their navigations systems, causing the death of many pink dolphins.