A Dolphin That Defies Easy Classification
Roughly 150 Irrawaddy dolphins live in Chilika Lake, making this the largest known population of the species in any single enclosed water body on earth. They are not the acrobatic, open-ocean dolphins of wildlife documentaries. Orcaella brevirostris, the Irrawaddy dolphin's scientific name, has a blunt, rounded head with no visible beak, a flexible neck that allows it to turn its head sideways, and a small, low dorsal fin set far back on the body. They look, at first glance, more like a beluga than a bottlenose.
