New York mammals

Common Bottlenose Dolphin in New York

Tursiops truncatus

Native to New York S3 Vulnerable in New York

Not listed as nonindigenous in New York by USGS NAS; native to its New York range.

IUCN Red List status

  1. LC
  2. NT
  3. VU
  4. EN
  5. CR
  6. EW
  7. EX

LC – Least Concern

Widespread and abundant; not at risk.

Common Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)Delfín mular (Tursiops truncatus), isla de San Cristóbal, islas Galápagos, Ecuador, 2015-07-24, DD 86Common Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)Two wild bottlenose dolphins breaching in unison over gray coastal waterWild bottlenose dolphin surfacing head-on, beak and dorsal fin above the water
Photo: NASA · Public domainCommon Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0Delfín mular (Tursiops truncatus), isla de San Cristóbal, islas Galápagos, Ecuador, 2015-07-24, DD 86Photo: Jonathan Eisen · CC BY 4.0Common Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)Photo: steve b · CC0Two wild bottlenose dolphins breaching in unison over gray coastal waterPhoto: Rolf Lawrenz · CC BY 4.0Wild bottlenose dolphin surfacing head-on, beak and dorsal fin above the water

Common Bottlenose Dolphin in New York, by the numbers

Rare in New York 94th most recorded of 102 mammals logged in New York

Records from 2000–2026.

Seasonality

No dated New York records from 2000 to 2026.

Bottlenose dolphins reach the northern edge of their East Coast range in New York, and iNaturalist and GBIF hold no dated New York records of them from 2000 to 2026. At the edge of a range, a species can go years between documented sightings, and a dolphin passing well offshore may never be logged at all.

NatureServe ranks the species Vulnerable (S3) in New York, so any verified report here would carry real weight in tracing how far north these dolphins range.

Occurrence data from GBIF.

Common Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)
Full species profile Common Bottlenose Dolphin Tursiops truncatus Size 2–4 m6.6–13.1 ft Weight 150–650 kg330.7–1433 lb Lifespan 60 yr View the full profile

More mammals in New York in the atlas

Data & sources

The data and visualizations on this page draw on these open sources:

  • GBIFCC-BY 4.0occurrence records behind the range map, elevation, and record counts
  • iNaturalistCC0 / CC-BY / CC-BY-SAobservations, photos, and audio recordings
  • NatureServe ExplorerCC-BYthe state conservation rank
  • IUCN Red Listattributed factthe global conservation status
  • USGS NASpublic domainnative / introduced status