Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphin was only recognized as its own species in 2021, split out from the common bottlenose dolphin as a distinct coastal, inshore-dwelling population found along the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Florida’s 632 records concentrate on the Space Coast, with Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge’s 9 named sightings leading Canaveral National Seashore’s 6, all of it GBIF data with no iNaturalist photographs logged yet, a sign of how new and specialist this identification still is.
Records peak in December, more than four times the summer low, a pattern that may reflect genuine seasonal movement into sheltered coastal water as temperatures drop. NatureServe hasn’t assigned Florida a numeric rank for the species (SNR), and its recent taxonomic split means most historical Florida dolphin records were never sorted between this species and the more offshore common bottlenose.
