Classroom lesson 路 Wildlife馃嚙馃嚛 Bangladesh

The Ganges river dolphin

A dolphin that lives in rivers and almost can't see

A Ganges river dolphin breaching out of a muddy river, with a long thin snout pointing upwards

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Most dolphins live in the sea, but the Ganges river dolphin lives in freshwater rivers - including the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers that flow through Bangladesh. It is the national aquatic animal of Bangladesh, and one of only a handful of river dolphins in the world.

Tell me more

The Ganges river dolphin is almost blind. The rivers it lives in are full of mud and silt washed down from the Himalayas, so eyes are not very useful. Instead, the dolphin uses sound. It makes clicking noises that bounce off fish, rocks and other animals - a bit like the sonar that submarines use - and listens to the echoes to 'see' its world.

It has a long, thin snout, almost like a beak, full of small sharp teeth for catching fish. It swims on its side, sweeping its snout along the muddy river bottom, feeling for shrimp and small fish hiding there. Scientists think it is one of the only dolphins in the world that swims this way on purpose.

These dolphins are shy and rare. There are only a few thousand left in the wild. They live in family groups of two or three, surfacing every couple of minutes to breathe. If you take a boat down the right stretch of the Brahmaputra at dawn, sometimes you see a grey back and a quick puff of breath - then it's gone again.

Bangladesh, India and Nepal all work together to protect the Ganges river dolphin. Fishermen are taught how to free dolphins that get caught in their nets by accident, and large stretches of river have been turned into protected zones where the dolphins can live in peace.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01How can an animal 'see' the world using sound instead of light?
  2. 02Why might it be helpful to swim on your side if you live in muddy water?
  3. 03What could a country do to look after an animal that is rare and shy?
Try this

Classroom activity

Play 'sonar' in the playground. One child wears a blindfold and stands in the middle. The others stand around them in a circle and clap, one at a time, from different places. The blindfolded child has to point at where the clap came from. How well can ears 'see'?