#cephalorhynchus commersonii

The little lads (+ friend)

Hey everybody. I’ve been down with the sickness as well as super busy with learning to drive trains, so a bit quiet again. But here’s some more friends from last year’s big commissions: a couple of little lads which I was glad to paint because a) they’re cute b) beautifully marked and c) for some reason I rarely get to paint them.

The Haviside’s dolphin has a funny story because it was actually misnamed. Captain Haviside first brought a specimen to the UK for study. The species was supposed to be named after him, but the zoologist studying the dolphin thought it was surgeon John Heaviside who’d brought it in (he did a lot of collecting too). Alas, scientific names may not be changed willy-nilly and so Captain Haviside remains forever miscredited. Common names, however, are flexible - hence my use of ‘Haviside’s dolphin’, even though ‘Heaviside’s’ is more common.

Commerson’s, our favourite oreo dolphin. There’s two subspecies: the South American which is black-and-white, and the Kerguelen, which is shown here and is more black-grey-white. I think they’re cool cause it shows there’s actually a colour pattern hidden in there. They also have serrated leading edges to their pectoral fins which is weird.

The Southern right whale dolphin is a bit shoe-horned in here (they’re not that little) courtesy of their bff relation with Dusky dolphins. For some reason the two species very often travel together and have even produced hybrid offspring.

Commerson’s dolphin is the lesser known black and white beauty of the dolphin world. Did you know there are almost 40 different species of dolphins?

Happy National Dolphin Day!

Image credit: Fernando Diaz