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Asked by awilson1234 to SarahJane on 19 Jun 2013.
Question: what is the rarest species under water???????
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Sarah-Jane Walsh answered on 19 Jun 2013:
It depends if you are talking about freshwater or in the oceans
One of the rarest species in the world is the Chinese River Dolphin. Due to development in the Yangtze river and the building of the Three Gorges Dam, its population crashed and it hasn’t been seen in the wild since an unconfirmed sighting in 2007, its is now thought to be extinct.
In the oceans the rarest creature is another dolphin (poor guys). There are only 55 Maui’s dolphins left in the wild and conservation efforts are fighting to try to save them!
It just shows that marine mammals are really at risk and the biggest cause is man!
Comments
alexszczech commented on :
The blob fish
SarahJane commented on :
Its true the blob fish is under threat from being caught as bycatch in trawls, however there is no current population estimate, think it will be more than 55 though so the Maui’s dolphin would still win =)
although there is not really a great prize for being the rarest creature in the ocean!
hberks commented on :
What about the Megamouth
SarahJane commented on :
Nice Spot1 Yes the mega mouth has only ever had 55 animals recorded. However it is likely there are more as they live very deep and dont need to come to the surface so they are veryhard to cound. Dolphins on the otherhand, have to come to the surface to breeth so are slightly easier to count, but still hard.
It is likely there are even rarer species that haven’t even been discovered yet and may become extinct before we ever do!