All species / Lagenorhynchus acutus

Lagenorhynchus acutus

Atlantic White-sided Dolphin

No photograph is shown for this species. A licensed photograph is stored, matched through a name iNaturalist treats as a synonym of this one, and no subject expert has confirmed the synonymy. See the gallery for the full accounting.

Red List, global: LC; Least Concern, 2019
First CITES listing: II; Appendix II, 1979
CITES trade records: 61; 1985–2022 · exporter-reported
Unit dimensions: 3; reported separately, never summed
NAMMCO catch entries: 32; catch records
Seizure records: 0; reported taxon matches

One of 43: each square a species, coloured by its latest global Red List category, this one ringed. Atlantic White-sided Dolphin is among the cetaceans.

In summary derived

Lagenorhynchus acutus, Atlantic White-sided Dolphin, is placed in family Delphinidae, order Cetacea, class Mammalia. It was first listed in Appendix II in 1979. The earliest CITES listing row the corpus holds for it is Appendix II, dated 1975, a later entry than the 1979 listing. The corpus records 1 dated listing row in total.

Its latest global Red List assessment is Least Concern, published 2019. It carries 2 earlier global assessments on the current scale and 2 on scales that were superseded before the current categories and cannot be compared with them.

The corpus holds 61 exporter-reported CITES trade records for it, from 1985 to 2022, reported across 3 unit dimensions. The most frequently recorded term is specimens: 57 records across 3 unit dimensions, of which 28 are measured in specimens. NAMMCO records 32 catch entries, from 1992 to 2023, totalling 7,608 animals reported by NAMMCO member countries, counting each year's area reports, or its national total where the year reports no area. Attribution is by the taxon name each report gave. No seizure record in the corpus is attributed to it.

Composed from 19 corpus fields, by template, with no model

species.class
species.family
species.order_name
species_catch.catch_total
species_catch.year
species_iucn.is_global
species_iucn.status
species_iucn.year_published
species_listing.appendix
species_listing.listing_date
species_listing_event.appendix
species_listing_event.event_date
species_seizure.*
species_trade.dimension
species_trade.first_year
species_trade.last_year
species_trade.record_count
species_trade.reporter_type
species_trade.term

Each sentence is generated from the columns above and nothing else. The same corpus produces the same text every time. Where a field is absent the sentence is omitted rather than hedged.

Overview curated

Taxonomy entered by a named curator and versioned in the repository.

Class: Mammalia
Order: Cetacea
Family: Delphinidae
First CITES listing: 1979
Global Red List status: LCLeast Concern, assessed 2019
Regional status (Europe): LCRegional, 2023. Not the species status.

Content withheld pending expert review

8 narrative sections for this species were machine-drafted and are not shown. No subject expert has reviewed and signed them.

Trade derived

CITES Trade Database v2025.1, extracted 13 June 2025.

There is no single trade total

Quantities are reported per unit dimension, per traded term, and per reporting side. These are not additive: kilograms and individual animals have no common unit, a live animal is not a carving, and an importer report and an exporter report are two accounts of one shipment rather than two shipments.

Figures below are exporter-reported.

count in specimens: 32 records, 52%
mass in kg: 28 records, 46%
packaging in containers: 1 record, 2%

Records per dimension. Not additive across units.

Trade over time

Peak 26 records in 2005. Trade records per year, exporter-reported, every term and unit counted as records, not quantities.

Peak 11 kg in 2021. Quantity of specimens, the term with most records (28), in kg, exporter-reported. Other terms are in the tables below, each in its own unit.

count measured in specimens

32 of 61 records carry a quantity in specimens. CITES leaves the unit blank to mean a count of the term.

specimens28

skeletons1

skulls1

teeth1

bodies1

Bars count trade records per term, not specimens, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in specimens.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	641 specimens	27	1991–2022	W
skeletons	1 specimen	1	1985	not recorded
specimens	5 specimens	1	1990	U
skulls	2 specimens	1	1991	W
teeth	144 specimens	1	1994	W
bodies	5 specimens	1	1994	W

mass measured in kg

28 of 61 records carry a quantity in kg.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	11.63 kg	28	2005–2022	W

packaging measured in containers

1 of 61 records carry a quantity in containers.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	12 containers	1	2000	W

CITES listings curated

CoP decisions, cross-checked against the appendix reported on trade records.

Date	Appendix	Annotation	Status
1975-07-01	II	Atlantic white-sided dolphin - Protected under order Cetacea Appendix II	first listing

Convention on Migratory Species

Listed under CMS: Appendix II. Also covered by ASCOBANS, which are separate instruments with their own annexes.

IUCN Red List derived

Assessment history. Scope is always stated: a regional assessment is not the species status.

This history crosses a criteria revision

Categories from before 2001 come from earlier Red List systems. Three kinds are kept apart.

LR/lc and LR/nt are the modern LC and NT under their old names, so they are plotted as those categories and the line runs through them: nothing changed but the wording.

LR/cd was discontinued with no successor. This project reads it as Near Threatened, following a published crosswalk between the old and new Red List systems, and the chart marks such a point hollow and names both codes, because placing a category is not the same as finding it published.

The pre-1994 codes (E, V, K, T and the rest) are not on the risk order at all, so they sit below the axis and the line breaks across them. A category change across a criteria revision is not a change in extinction risk, and none of these is scored as a movement: the ledger refuses every one of them at gate 3.

published global assessment
not on this scale (below the axis)
regional assessment, never joined

Vertical position is the IUCN risk order, not a measured quantity: the gaps between categories are equal on the page and not in nature. Anything that is not one of the nine modern categories carries no position on that order — Data Deficient, a superseded category, or a record that no assessment was made — so it sits below the axis and the line breaks across it rather than joining through. Each point names which it is. Regional assessments are shown but never joined to global ones; they describe a different population. The dashed step crosses the 2001 revision of the Red List criteria: the category codes on either side match, the criteria behind them do not, so the step is shown and not measured.

Category movement since listing: not scored. Gate 3: the baseline category K comes from a pre-2001 Red List system and is not on the modern ordinal scale. Insufficiently Known (pre-1994; not a risk category). How this is defined and why some species are not scored

Year	Category	Meaning	Scope	Status
2023	LC	Least Concern	Europe	current for this scope
2019	LC	Least Concern	Global	current for this scope
2008	LC	Least Concern	Global
2007	LC	Least Concern	Global
1996	LR/lc	Lower Risk, least concern (1994 system)	Global
1994	K	Insufficiently Known (pre-1994; not a risk category)	Global

Reported catch derived

NAMMCO catch exports dated 11 June 2025. A reported zero is stored as zero, distinct from an unknown.

Year	Area	Catch	Quota
2023	North Atlantic	10	none
2022	North Atlantic	0	none
2021	North Atlantic	1,423	none
2020	North Atlantic	8	none
2019	North Atlantic	8	none
2018	Faroe Islands	256	none
2017	Faroe Islands	488	none
2016	Faroe Islands	0	none
2015	Faroe Islands	0	none
2014	Faroe Islands	0	none
2013	Faroe Islands	430	none
2012	Faroe Islands	0	none
2011	Faroe Islands	0	none
2010	Faroe Islands	14	none
2009	Faroe Islands	170	none
2008	Faroe Islands	1	none
2007	Faroe Islands	0	none
2006	Faroe Islands	622	none
2005	Faroe Islands	312	none
2004	Faroe Islands	333	none
2003	Faroe Islands	186	none
2002	Faroe Islands	773	none
2001	Faroe Islands	546	none
2000	Faroe Islands	255	none
1999	Faroe Islands	0	none
1998	Faroe Islands	438	none
1997	Faroe Islands	350	none
1996	Faroe Islands	152	none
1995	Faroe Islands	151	none
1994	Faroe Islands	258	none
1993	Faroe Islands	377	none
1992	Faroe Islands	47	none

Illegal trade seizures derived

Seizure records whose reported taxon resolves to this species.

What the seizure source records

No seizure in the compilation names this species. Matching is on the taxon the source reported, case aside. Across the whole compilation, 225 of 919 rows match one of the 43 species and the rest name other taxa.

Quantities are unitless. The source gives no date or place, so the table shows the product and the reported taxon.

No seizure records attributed to this species.

References withheld

Machine-proposed bindings. Shown only where an expert has signed the profile and the binding is live.

No references are recorded for this species: none is shown, and none was machine-proposed for review.

Timeline curated

Curated events. Those with no corroborating table in this database are marked.

Date	Event	Type	Corroboration
2023	IUCN Red List Assessment (2023)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2019	IUCN Red List Assessment (2019)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2008	IUCN Red List Assessment (2008)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2007	IUCN Red List Assessment (2007)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1996	IUCN Red List Assessment (1996)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1994	IUCN Red List Assessment (1994)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1975-07-01	Listed in CITES Appendix II	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`