NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD
Bottlenose Dolphin
Tursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821)
Source-backed taxonomic record
Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.
Bottlenose Dolphin - Tursiops truncatus A dolphin surfs the wake of a research boat on the Banana River - near the Kennedy Space Center.
NASA · Public domain · Image sourceProvider-generated thumbnail requested at 320 pixels; no local editing Local WebP display rendition; resized without cropping.
Open encyclopedia reference
The common bottlenose dolphin or Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is one of three species of bottlenose dolphin in the genus Tursiops. While formerly known simply as the bottlenose dolphin, this term is now applied to the genus Tursiops as a whole. As considerable genetic variation has been described within this species, even between neighboring populations, many experts think additional species may be recognized and split out.
The common bottlenose dolphin is a very familiar dolphin due to the wide exposure it receives in captivity in marine parks and dolphinariums, and in movies and television programs. Common bottlenose dolphins inhabit temperate and tropical oceans throughout the world, absent only from polar waters.
Wikipedia contributors, Common bottlenose dolphin; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T01:19:40.019239+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Tursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821)
- Name authority
- (Montagu, 1821)
- Common name
- Bottlenose Dolphin
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Cetacea
- Family
- Delphinidae
- Genus
- Tursiops
- Extinction status
- Recorded extant
Classification family tree
Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.
- domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- subphylumVertebrata
- infraphylumGnathostomata
- parvphylumOsteichthyes
- megaclassTetrapoda
- classMammalia Linnaeus, 1758
- subclassTheria Parker & Haswell, 1897
- infraclassEutheria Gill, 1872
- orderCetacea Brisson, 1762
- suborderOdontoceti Flower, 1867
- familyDelphinidae Gray, 1821
- genusTursiops Gervais, 1855
- speciesTursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821)
Close classified relatives
No other member of this genus is present in the selected snapshot.
Names & synonyms
Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.
| Recorded name | Source status |
|---|---|
| Tursiops nesarnack (Lacépède, 1804) (Lacépède, 1804) | synonym |
Documented distribution
Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.
Eastern Atlantic Ocean
Indo-West Pacific
Western Atlantic Ocean
Source literature & publication evidence
References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.
- https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=180426 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references
Origins, evidence & remaining research
Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.
Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.
Dataset citation & attribution
This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11
Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.
Stable key: col:59R5F. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.