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Phocoena phocoena

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Phocoena phocoena

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Also known as Harbour porpoise

species of marine mammal

OverviewAI-generated

Phocoena phocoena, commonly known as the Harbour porpoise or Common Porpoise, is a species of marine mammal. It belongs to the family Phocoenidae within the order Cetacea and class Mammalia. The species was described by Linnaeus in 1758 and is currently accepted as a valid taxon. It inhabits marine and brackish environments.

The species has existed for about 4 million years. Its IUCN conservation status is Least Concern, with a regional status of Near Threatened. The animal is cathemeral, meaning it is active throughout both day and night. The gestation period is 9 months, and the life expectancy is 9 years, with the longest observed lifespan reaching 20.4 years.

Synthesized by Vinony from 48 facts across 8 sources: Wikidata, GBIF, iNaturalist, Gbif Occ, IUCN Red List, WoRMS, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Species

Least Concern

bay porpoise

Phocoena phocoena

SPECIES

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumChordata
  3. ClassMammalia
  4. OrderCetacea
  5. FamilyPhocoenidae
Habitatmarine, brackish
Observations10,083
Observations recorded793,474

Maximum longevity: 20.4 years (captivity) Observations: These animals rarely live more than 13 years in the wild (Ronald Nowak 1999). One captive specimen was still alive at 20.4 years of age (Richard Weigl 2005).

via GBIF · IUCN

Museum specimens

Specimen records
6,108
With media
361
Family
Phocoenidae
Collections
RBINS-SCIENTIFIC HERITAGE, MVZ, UWBM
Recorded in
France, United States, Belgium

~17 min read

Encyclopedic overview

The harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) is one of eight extant species of porpoise. It is one of the smallest species of cetacean. As its name implies, it stays close to coastal areas or river estuaries, and as such, is the most familiar porpoise to whale watchers. This porpoise often ventures up rivers, and has been seen hundreds of kilometres from the sea. The harbour porpoise may be polytypic, with geographically distinct populations representing distinct races: P. p. phocoena in the North Atlantic and West Africa, P. p. relicta in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, an unnamed population in the northwestern Pacific and P. p. vomerina in the northeastern Pacific.

Taxonomy

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Phocoena phocoena” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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