Sunday, 9 February 2025

Delphinids: Common and Bottlenose Dolphins

Common dolphin
When the genus Delphis was first named in 1758 at the dawn of taxonomy, it included three species of small to medium-sized toothed cetacean. By the time the dolphin family, Delphinidae, was named in 1821, one of those species (the porpoise) had been moved elsewhere, but five new ones had been added. Many more followed, but, from the mid-18th century onwards, naturalists began to notice subtle differences between animals that were probably more mysterious to them than land-dwelling mammals, and many species of dolphin began to be separated out into newly created genera.

So much so in fact, that by the time we reach the 21st century, only one species remains in the genus originally created to contain all dolphins and dolphin-like animals. That species is, of course, the one that we believe Linnaeus happened to be thinking of when he named the genus, and therefore is the defining (or 'type') species not only for its genus but for the dolphin family as a whole. This is the aptly named common dolphin (Delphinus delphis).

Saturday, 1 February 2025

Call of the Mole Vole

There are over 170 recognised species of vole. The exact number is hard to determine because new species keep being described and not all will necessarily stand the test of time but we can certainly say that there are a lot. Although we might typically think of voles as being all rather similar to one another - small, mouse-like animals with short tails and rounded snouts - within such a large group there is inevitably some variation.

Most obviously different from regular voles are the giant species. Although genetic data shows us that these are voles, in the sense of being offshoots of the vole family tree rather than something distinct, we don't normally refer to them as such in English. Instead, we call them "lemmings" or, in the case of the very largest species, "muskrats". To avoid potential confusion, in more scientific language we would therefore use the taxonomic name when referring to the subfamily as a whole and say that voles, lemmings, and muskrats collectively are "arvicolines".