An offshore dolphin with striking stripes running from the eyes along the sides of its body.
Thin stripes link the eyes to the flippers, while another stripe runs toward the rear underside.
In the Gulf of Taranto in southern Italy, researchers carried out 15 boat surveys from spring to summer 2017 and collected tissue samples from 57 striped dolphins. They examined part of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene and found 11 sequence types among 25 analysed samples. The gulf’s underwater shape and water movements may help explain differences from other Mediterranean dolphins.
The study used one maternally inherited marker, however, and it could not rule out a larger, widely mixing Mediterranean population. To define a management unit, researchers need evidence about gene flow and ecological differences across time scales relevant to conservation.
IUCN Red List · Least Concern (LC) · Global
The IUCN Red List listed the Striped Dolphin as Least Concern globally in 2019. This is an assessment of the species as a whole. The Gulf of Taranto study explored the possibility of local genetic structure but did not establish a separate population. Movement and local ecological patterns remain uncertain, so the global category should not be treated as a complete account of conditions in the gulf; longer-term genetic and ecological research can clarify them.
An ACCOBAMS Scientific Committee report from 2023 lists the Mediterranean subpopulation as Least Concern (LC) and the Gulf of Corinth subpopulation as Endangered (EN) under IUCN assessments. The Taranto study did not assign its sampled dolphins to either regional assessment unit.