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Lipotes vexillifer Miller, 1918

Baiji, Yangtze River dolphin, Chinese river dolphin, Changjiang dolphin, Chinese Lake dolphin, Whitefin dolphin, White flag dolphin, White-flag dolphin

 

 

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

 

 

Conservation Status

Extinct

Last record: 2002 (captive animal); 2006 (Fisher & Blomberg, 2012); August 2007 (unconfirmed video recording)

IUCN status: Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct)

 

Retroposon anaysis carried out by (Nikaido et. al. 2001) found that the common ancestor of Lipotes vexillifer and the Amazon-La Plata dolphin lineage split some 21.5mya, give or take 4.6 million years. Therefore the extinction of the Baiji meant that we also lost almost 20 million years of evolution, which just compounds the loss of such a unique creature even further.

Qi Qi, the most famous individual was found stranded in 1980. He was then taken to the aquarium of the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he lived for 22 years. Much of what we know of the Baiji derives from the study of this one individual, including their longevity. Baiji's could therefore live in excess of 22 years (he was already a significant size when he was captured). However, this unfortunately does not have much bearing upon their longevity in the wild since it is well know that captive conditions are usually better than the wild, and hence captive individuals of most species tend to outlive their wild counterparts. Nonetheless we know that it is at least possible for Baiji's to live for more than two decades.

But this has more immediate and significant implications. There is a well known general correlation between a whole suite of characteristics of an organism which alter in equal measure. Species whose individuals have longer life spans tend to have fewer offspring, mature later, have slower metabolisms etc. A species like the Baiji which may have lived for twenty years in the wild would not have stood much of a chance of survival given the high death toll caused both directly and indirectly as a result of human alteration of its habitat, and increasing traffic along the Yangtze rivers waterways. It has been estimated that the entire population of Baiji in the late 1970s/early 1980s was only 300-400 individuals. And so given the high death toll and the slow breeding of the species it is not at all surprising, though it is sad beyond words, that the species went extinct so fast: possibly 400 individuals in 1980 to almost none post-2000!

 

Distribution

Qiantang River (incl. Fuchun River) & Yangtze River (incl. Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake), China (Turvey, 2008)

 

Biology & Ecology

 

 

Hypodigm

 

 

Media

38 photos of living or recently deceased Baiji: https://otlibrary.com/chinese-river-dolphin/

 

 

References

Original scientific description:

Miller, G. S. Jnr. (1918). A new river dolphin from China. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 68(2486): 1-12.

 

Other references:

Akamatsu T., Wang D., Nakamura K. & Wang K. (1998).  Echolocation range of captive and free-ranging baiji (Lipotes vexillifer), finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides), and bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 104: 2511-2516.

Baiji Research Group. (1989). A proposal for establishment of a semi-natural reserve at Shishou for conservation and management of the baiji (Lipotes vexillifer). Pp 21-22. In: W. Perrin, R. Brownell, K. Zhou and J. Liu (eds.). Biology and Conservation of the River Dolphins. World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland.

Brook, Barry W., Buettel, Jessie C. and Jarić, Ivan. (Accepted). A fast re‐sampling method for using reliability ratings of sightings with extinction‐date estimators. Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2787 [Abstract]

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Chen, P. (1989). Baiji Lipotes vexillifer (Miller, 1918), pp. 25-44. In: S. H. Ridgway and R. J. Harrison (eds), Handbook of Marine Mammals. Volume 4: River Dolphins and the Larger Toothed Whales. London: Academic Press.

Chen P. & Hua Y., (1987). Projected impacts of the Three Gorges Dam on the baiji, Lipotes vexillifer, and needs for conservation of the species. In: Anonymous (ed.), A collection of articles on the impacts  of the Three-Gorges Dam project on aquatic ecosystem along the Changjiang and research on their countermeasures (pp. 30-41). Beijing, China: China Science Press. (Translated by C. H. Perrin and  editted by W. F. Perrin?)

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http://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/7767/lipotes-vexillifer-yangtze-river-dolphin

 

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