Lipotes vexillifer
The baiji is a possibly extinct species of river dolphin native to the Yangtze river system in China. It is thought to possibly be the first dolphin species driven to extinction due to the impact of humans. This dolphin is listed as "critically endangered: possibly extinct" by the IUCN, has not been definitively seen in over 20 years, and several surveys of the Yangtze have failed to find it. The species is also called the Chinese river dolphin, Yangtze river dolphin, Yangtze dolphin, and whitefin dolphin. The genus name Lipotes means "left behind" and the species epithet vexillifer means "flag bearer". It is nicknamed the "Goddess of the Yangtze" and was regarded as the goddess of protection by local fishermen and boatmen. It is not to be confused with the Chinese white dolphin or the finless porpoise (Neophocaena). This is the only species in the genus Lipotes.
Gerrit Smith Miller · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Chinese river dolphinPBDB
- Sits inside
- LipotesPBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB, for Lipotes
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Lipotes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Lipotes
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Lipotes
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Lipotes vexillifer on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Lipotes vexillifer and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Lipotes vexillifer and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
1 taxonThe Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Lipotes vexillifer, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- The Yangtze River dolphin or baiji (Lipotes vexillifer): population status and conservation issues in the Yangtze River, China1
- Catalog of Living Whales1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Lipotes vexillifer
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Gerrit Smith Miller
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Lipotes vexillifer was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Baiji”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itLipotes through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Miller 1918