The Irrawaddy dolphin, Orcaella brevirostris, is found in a few locations in South and Southeast Asia, near coasts and estuaries from the Bay of Bengal to New Guinea, the Philippines, and northern Australia.Although sometimes called the Irrawaddy River Dolphin, it is a true oceanic dolphin, closely related to the orca, that enters rivers including the Ganges, Mekong, and Irrawaddy. The term 'dolphin' can be used to refer to, under the parvorder Odontoceti, all the species in the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins) and the river dolphin families Iniidae (South American river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (La Plata dolphin), Lipotidae (Yangtze river dolphin) and Platanistidae (Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin). However, it is not a true river dolphin and prefers to live in estuaries and brackish water near coasts. The Irrawaddy dolphin is also regarded as a sacred animal by both Khmer and Lao people, and is an important source of income and jobs for communities involved in dolphin-watching ecotourism. The Irrawaddy dolphin is a slow swimmer, but swimming speeds of 20–25 kilometres per hour (12–16 mph) were reported when dolphins were being chased in a boat. Dolphin, any of the toothed whales belonging to the mammal family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins) as well as the families Platanistidae and Iniidae, the two that contain the river dolphins. The protection of the Irrawaddy dolphin is crucial for the overall health of the Mekong River—home to an estimated 1,100 species of fish. Besides the Irrawaddy River, it is also found in India’s Ganges, and Southeast Asia’s Mekong River. It lives in the waters around India, northern Australia, South China, the Red Sea, and the eastern coast of Africa. The Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus) is a species of bottlenose dolphin.This dolphin grows to 2.6 m (8.5 ft) long, and weighs up to 230 kg (510 lb). This species is facing considerable threats to its survival, and its population has dwindled from 4000 to 5000 in the early 1980s to 3500 in … Some Irrawaddy dolphins kept in captivity have been trained to do spyhopping on command. Of the nearly 40 species of dolphins in the Delphinidae, 6 are commonly called whales, including the killer whale and the pilot whales . Ganges River dolphin, Platanista gangetica gangetica, is one of the three obligatory freshwater dolphins in the world and is distributed in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna and Sangu–Karnaphuli River systems in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Irrawaddy dolphins get their name from the former name of the Ayeyarwady River in Myanmar; when Myanmar was called Burma, this same river was known as the Irrawaddy River. The South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) is an endangered freshwater or river dolphin found in the region of Indian Subcontinent which is split into two subspecies, the Ganges river dolphin (P. g. gangetica, ~3,500 individuals) and the Indus river dolphin (P. g. minor, ~1,500 individuals). Its range extends from the Bay of Bengal to New Guinea and the Philippines. The Irrawaddy dolphin is not classified as a river dolphin although some populations do live exclusively in freshwater rivers hundreds of miles away from the coast.