Pacific White-Sided Dolphin
Lagenorhynchus obliquidens
How did this skeleton get to the Visitor Center?
This skeleton was a donation to the Visitor Center.
This skeleton should be about one foot longer than it is because the reconstruction didn’t use placeholders for the vertebral disks that would otherwise be present.
Notice that this dolphin has very pointy teeth. This distinction distinguishes dolphins and porpoises, which have more peg-like teeth.
Pacific White-Sided Dolphin Facts
- Adult Size: Males can weigh up to 440 pounds and be up to 8 feet long.
- Life Span: 36 to 40 years
- Feeding Habits: These dolphins feed on various small schooling fish and squid. They can dive for up to six minutes, and they work together with pod members to corral schools of fish. Adults may eat up to 20 pounds of food per day.
- Mating and Offspring: They mate in late spring to fall, and calves are born in late winter. Gestation is 9-12 months. Newborns weigh about 30 pounds and are about three to five feet long.
- Frequency and Abundance on the Oregon Coast: This is a pelagic species, so they are typically far out into the ocean. From November to April, they shift southward for warmer temperatures, returning to more northerly waters from May to October.