{"id":83090,"date":"2026-01-18T13:51:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T08:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=83090"},"modified":"2026-01-19T16:27:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T10:57:04","slug":"irrawaddy-dolphin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/irrawaddy-dolphin\/","title":{"rendered":"Irrawaddy Dolphin"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Irrawaddy Dolphin Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change recently launched the second nationwide range-wide estimation of riverine and estuarine dolphins under Project Dolphin, which, for the first time, includes the estimation of the Irrawaddy dolphin in the Sundarbans and in Odisha.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Irrawaddy Dolphin<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>euryhaline species<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of oceanic dolphin found in <\/span><b>discontinuous subpopulations near sea coasts and in estuaries and rivers <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in parts of the <\/span><b>Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Euryhaline organisms<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> survive in a <\/span><b>range of salinity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. These organisms <\/span><b>thrive in saltwater, freshwater, and brackish water.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientific Name: Orcaella brevirostris<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Irrawaddy Dolphin <\/b><b>Habitat and Distribution<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is found in <\/span><b>three rivers in South and Southeast Asia<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: the <\/span><b>Irrawaddy (Myanmar),<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>Mahakam (Kalimatan, Indonesia), <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the <\/span><b>Mekong (Cambodia).\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Indian presence<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Occurs mainly in <\/span><b>Chilika Lake (Odisha)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; also reported in the <\/span><b>Sundarbans region.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Irrawaddy dolphins <\/span><b>prefer coastal areas<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, particularly<\/span><b> muddy, brackish waters at river mouths <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and deltas, and do not appear to venture far offshore.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Irrawaddy Dolphin <\/b><b>Features<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has an instantly recognisable, charismatic <\/span><b>rounded face and head with no beak;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> they look like baby belugas, only <\/span><b>with a dorsal fin.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have <\/span><b>expressive face<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s thanks to their <\/span><b>moveable lips<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and have <\/span><b>creases around their necks <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as they are <\/span><b>able to move their heads in all directions.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are<\/span><b> grey all over but lighter on the belly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> dorsal fin is small<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; their <\/span><b>flippers are long and large<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with curved leading edges and rounded tips, and their tails are also large.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Irrawaddy dolphins have<\/span><b> narrow, pointed, peg-like teeth<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> about 1 cm in length in both the upper and lower jaws.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Irrawaddy Dolphin <\/b><b>Conservation Status<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>It is classified as &#8216;<strong>Endangered<\/strong>&#8216; under the IUCN Red List.<\/p>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newindianexpress.com\/nation\/2026\/Jan\/17\/india-launches-second-nationwide-dolphin-survey-expands-count-to-irrawaddy-species\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NIE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Irrawaddy Dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) is a euryhaline dolphin found in coastal, estuarine, and river waters of the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia. Read more about Irrawaddy Dolphin, Habitat, Distribution, Conservation Status, News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":83236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4808,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-83090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-irrawaddy-dolphin","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}