Proposed English common name for the neotropical delphinid Sotalia guianensis (P.-J. Van Beneden, 1864)

Dolphins of the genus Sotalia (Delphinidae) occur along the Atlantic and Caribbean coasts of South and Central America and in the Amazon and Orinoco River basins (Flores and Da Silva, 2009; da Silva et al., 2010 this volume; Gómez-Salazar et al., 2010 this volume). The genus has been divided into two species based on skull morphology (Monteiro Filho et al., 2002) and genetic evidence (Cunha et al., 2005; Caballero et al., 2007; Caballero et al., 2010 this volume). The name Sotalia fluviatilis (Gervais and Deville in Gervais, 1853) has been assigned to animals found in the Amazon River basin (riverine) while Sotalia guianensis (P-J. Van Bénedén, 1864) designates the coastal (marine) species in South and Central America, including the Orinoco River delta and Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. While the name tucuxi has been widely adopted to refer to the former, for the latter common or vernacular names, whether in Spanish, Portuguese or English, vary depending on local designations across its range. The taxonomic status of dolphins occurring in the lower and middle Orinoco is uncertain and here we refer to them as Sotalia sp.