Skip to content
All news
  • All news
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Corporates
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Scottish Dolphin Centre
  • Stop whaling
  • Stranding
  • Whale watching
A Baby Humpback Whale Plays Near the Surface in Blue Water

New report by Deloitte and WDC does a deep dive into the opportunities for businesses in embracing oceanic biodiversity

Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) and Deloitte have released a new report that shines a...

Dead whale beauty products to be sold in Japanese vending machine stores

https://au.whales.org/2023/05/12/dead-whale-beauty-products-to-be-sold-in-japanese-vending-machine-stores/

Arrests made following illegal whale meat smuggling from Japan to South Korea

Customs authorities in Busan, South Korea, have arrested six people for allegedly smuggling at least...

New report on Icelandic hunts reveals whale can take two hours to die

Fin whale with unexploded grenade harpoon embedded in his or her side. © Hard To...

Fossil of river dolphin relative identified after 65 years

The skull of an ancestor of the river dolphins that live today in South Asia, has been identified over 60 years after being discovered in Alaska according to a new scientific paper. Over 25 millions years old, the fossil belongs to a group of dolphins that lived in a sub-arctic marine environment unlike their modern-day relatives, which inhabit the major rivers of Asia such as the Indus and Ganges.

Like other river dolphins, the South Asian river dolphin is under threat due to habitat loss and the impact of other human activities throughout much of its range.

The skull had been stored at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC before being re-examined. The scientists who wrote the report, Alexandra Boersma and Nicholas Pyenson, have identified the specimen as a new genus and species, which has been named Arktocara yakataga. It lived around the time that whales were evolving into the two groups we know today – baleen whales (mysticetes) such as blue and humpback whales, and toothed whales (odontocetes) such as sperm whale and dolphins.