Indian dolphin: Difference between revisions

Indian dolphin (edit)

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-'''India dolphin''' (''Platanista gangetica'') is a [[freshwater]] or [[river dolphin]] found in [[India]], [[Bangladesh]], [[Nepal]], and [[Pakistan]].
+'''Indian dolphins''', belonging to the genus ''Platanista'', are toothed whales found in the waterways of the [[Indian subcontinent]]. Historically, they were regarded as a single species (''P. gangetica''), with the Ganges river dolphin and the Indus river dolphin considered subspecies (''P. g. gangetica'' and ''P. g. minor respectively''). However, due to genetic and morphological studies, they were reclassified as distinct species in 2021. It is estimated that the Ganges and Indus river dolphins diverged around 5,50,000 years ago. These dolphins are the sole surviving members of the family ''Platanistidae'' and the superfamily ''Platanistoidea''. Fossils of their ancient ancestors have been traced back to the late Oligocene period.
-It is split into two subspecies, the Ganges river dolphin (''P. g. gangetica'') and Indus river dolphin (''P. g. minor'').
-From the 1970s until 1998, they were regarded as separate species; however, in 1998, their classification was changed from two separate species to subspecies of a single species. The idea was to wait until [[sequence analysis|genetic analysis]] had decided how best to classify them.
 ==References==