1903.] 



NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 313 



A NOTE ON THE COMMON BOTTLENOSED PORPOISE OF THE NORTH 

 ATLANTIC, TURSIOPS TRUNCATUS (Montagu). 



BY FREDERICK W. TRUE. 



The common Tursiops of the North Atlantic is generally known m 

 scientific parlance as Tursiops tursio (Fabricius), taking its specific 

 name from the Delphinus tursio of Fabriciiis. During a recent study 

 of Fabricius' species I became convinced that whatever his D. tursio 

 might be it was not the bottlenosed porpoise, so common on the Atlan- 

 tic coast of the United States. 



The original description by Fabricius has been learnedly discussed 

 by Eschricht, Holboll, Robert Brown, and others with the view of 

 determining if possible what it really represents, but the principal con- 

 cern here is to determine what it does not represent. 



After describing the head of his D. tursio, Fabricius proceeds as 

 follows: "Teeth in both jaws distant, with obtuse apex, as in Del- 

 phinus albicans [=Delphinapterus leucas], but larger. Body very thick , 

 as in Boops [i.e., humpback whale] and equal with the young of the 

 latter."! 



Now the teeth of the common bottlenosed porpoise are not far apart, 

 and are acute except in old individuals, and are smaller than those of 

 Delphinapterus. But most significant of all is the remark that the 

 body equals that of the voung of the humpback whale. The young of 

 this whale has a length of from 14 to 18 feet at UrtK which proportions 

 are never reached by the adult bottlenosed porpoise. 



Taking these facts into consideration it would seem out of the ques- 

 tion to apply Fabricius' name to our common porpoise. The Green- 

 landic name reported by Fabricius for his species was Ncsarnak. 

 Eschricht states that this word means simply "resembhng the Nisa." 

 msa is a name for porpoise adopted by the Greenlanders from the 

 Scandinavian colonists.^ 



Capt. Holboll had previously stated that the natives appeared to 

 designate the blackfish, Glohicephala, by this name, but certainly not 

 the porpoise currently known as D. tursio.^ 



In 1868, Robert Brown, in treating of the cetaceans of Greenland, 

 remarked under the head of Glo hicephala: "There seems httle doubt 



1 Fabricius, Fauna Groenlandica, 1780, p. 49. 



2 Ann. Sci. Nat., 5e ser., ZooL, I, 1864 p. 209 



3 Holboll in Eschricht's Untermch. iiher nord. nallthiere, 1849, p. 190. 



