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 Unlike other dolphins, blind
river dolphins are found in the rivers and not in the seas. There
are two kinds of blind river dolphins in South Asia - the Indus and
Ganges River dolphins. The Indus River dolphin is found in the Indus
and Chenab Rivers in Pakistan. The Ganges River dolphin is found in
the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers that flow through India, Nepal, Bhutan
and Bangladesh.
They have a long beak and wide flippers. They are gray-brown
in color. Their eyes are very small.
In fact, these river dolphins
are the only species in the world to have
eyes without lenses! And they don’t have
good eye sight. This is why they
are called “blind” dolphins. But don’t worry. They have a very good
sense of hearing instead. So they have no
problem finding food!
The blind river dolphins are 1.5-2.5 meters long and weigh 80-90 kilograms. They
are slow swimmers, but they can move fast when they need to. They
prefer to live in deeper
waters. But they can also survive in shallow waters. They feed
mostly on several kinds of fish. They
breathe through their blowholes with a loud sound that sounds like
a sneeze. The sound can be
heard from far away!
Sadly, Indus River dolphins
and Ganges River dolphins are endangered. That means, they will all die out if we don’t protect them. The dolphins
are threatened by pollution and dam building. Also, people are
hunting them for their meat and oil. There are fewer
than 4,000 to 6,000 blind river dolphins left in the world today and
the number is decreasing fast. |
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