The Species Guide provides an introduction to each species of whale, dolphin and porpoise. We provide background information on the morphology, behaviour and distribution of the different species and complement this with a selection of photographs of the animals at sea.
For the text and distribution maps, our main sources in preparing this have been the IUCN Red List (www.redlist.org), Marine Mammals of the World (Jefferson et al. 2008), Guide to Marine Mammals of the World (Reeves et al 2002), The Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals: 2nd Edition (Perrin et al., 2009) and the International Whaling Commission for some population estimates.
Good images of cetaceans at sea are hard to come by and take a lot of patience and dedication and WDCS would like to thank all the contributors to the guide to date - we wouldn't have been able to bring it to you without them! To all the researchers in the field and to the whale/dolphin-watching enthusiasts - THANK YOU!
Our aim is To develop the WDCS Species Guide into the best freely available online resource for cetacean information. However, as you will see, there are several species that have limited information and/or no images and if you can help fill any of these gaps then please get in touch! Future plans for the guide include video footage and acoustic recordings; again, if you can help, please get in touch! If you have suggestions and/or comments or are interested in contributing material, photographs, acoustics or video footage, please email here.