ATLANTIC SPOTTED DOLPHIN (Stenella frontalis): Western North Atlantic Stock

• Main Authors: Stock Definition, Geographic Range
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: Payne; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.294.7777; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/ao2000doas-wn.pdf

There are two sp ecies of spo tted dolph in in the W estern Atlantic — the Atlantic sp otted dolp hin, Stenella frontalis, formerly S. plagiodon (Perrin et al. 1987), and the pantropical spotted do lphin, S. attenua ta. These species are difficult to differentiate at sea. Atlantic spotted dolphins are distributed in tropical and warm tem perate waters of the w estern No rth Atlantic (Leatherwood et al. 1976). Their distribution is from southern New England, south through the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean to Venezuela (Leatherwood et al. 1976; Perrin et al. 1994). The large, heavily spotted form of the Atlantic spotted do lphin alon g the southeastern and Gulf coasts of the United States, which may warrant designation as a distinct sub-species (Rice 1998), ( inhabits the continental shelf, usually being found inside or near the 200 m isobath (within 25 0-350 km of th e coast) bu t sometim es coming into very shallow water adjacen t to the beach (Figure 1). Off the northeast USA coast, spotted dolphins are widely distributed on the continental shelf, along the continental shelf edge, and offshore over the deep ocean south of 40 o N (CETAP 1982). Atlantic spotted dolphins regularly occur in the insho re waters so uth of Chesapeake Bay and near the continental shelf edge and continental slope waters north of this region (Payne et al. 1984; M ullin in review). Sightings have also been made along the n orth wall of the Gulf Stream and warm-core ring features (Waring et al. 1992). Stock structure in the western North Atlantic is unknown. POPULATION SIZE