Lipotes vexillifer

  • Common name: Yangtze River Dolphin
  • Classification: Mammalia → Artiodactyla (Cetacea) → Iniidae
  • Extinction date: Declared functionally extinct in 2006 (no confirmed sightings since early 2000s)


       Scientific and Historical Significance

  • Considered a living fossil, lineage diverged from other river dolphins ~20 million years ago.
  • Its extinction is one of the most notable examples of modern human-driven freshwater mammal loss.

Industrialization and ships reduced safe habitats.
Overfishing reduced food supply
Pollution poisoned the river.
Dams and development destroyed habitats
Bycatch killed many dolphins.
The Yangtze River dolphin, Lipotes vexillifer, once breathed beneath waters now silenced. Fish bombing destroyed its prey, then the dolphin itself. Only bones remain, marking extinction not as accident, but as consequence of human hands.


Yangtze River, China


The baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin, was once found throughout China’s longest river. It lived among backwaters and wetlands, feeding on native fish and earning the title “Goddess of the Yangtze.”
By the late 20th century, rapid industrialization and heavy ship traffic reshaped the river. Pollution poisoned the water, nets trapped dolphins, and overfishing left little food. In the 1980s thousands were counted, but by the 1990s fewer than 100 survived.
Despite rescue attempts, dam construction and habitat loss pushed the species past recovery. A 2006 survey found none, and the baiji was declared functionally extinct—a warning of how quickly human activity can erase a species.

      























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