Bottlenose dolphins who live along the eastern coastline of the U.S. are probably more closely related to other coastal dolphins than they are to their offshore counterparts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported earlier this month.
NOAA Fisheries released a report on May 13 that states researchers have determined that bottlenose dolphins living along the coasts and in estuaries between New York and Florida probably are a separate species from those living in deeper waters farther offshore and "are more closely related to other coastal populations in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico than their neighboring offshore common bottlenose dolphins."
“The research on this project took more than 8 years to conduct and follows on decades of previous research on this new species,” NOAA states in the report.
The study's lead author, Ana Costa, a Ph.D and lecturer at the University of Miami, worked with NOAA scientists to collect and analyze DNA and other physical data from dolphins that stranded along the East Coast, the statement reports. Costa combined independent lines of evidence to reach the conclusion that coastal dolphins are likely markedly different from offshore dolphins.
New species need names, with both the scientific and "common" species names typically chosen by the scientist credited with the discovery.
"As part of the process to select the new scientific name, Costa went back to the first description of a coastal bottlenose dolphin from the U.S. East Coast published in 1865," NOAA reports. "She chose the first Latin name applied to these dolphins: Tursiops erebennus."
Deciding on a common name was a collaboration between Costa and her co-authors in the study, including Southwest Fisheries Science Center scientist Eric Archer, Ph.D., according to NOAA. Since the original specimen in the study was collected from what is now the coast of New Jersey, study authors conferred with leaders of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribe, who are descended from area's original peoples, according to the report.
"Everyone agreed on the name 'Tamanend's bottlenose dolphin' after Chief Tamanend," NOAA states in the report, "who was known for his wisdom and peaceful nature."
